A symphony of blood and darkness
by gaiachild
Summary: A witch with uncommon powers and a dark past. A very unordinary fairy. Both are freshmen. Their pathes will cross and together they shall face the grey sides of the magic dimension. Contains swearing and violence.
1. First day in the office

This story is mainly about my own characters, the Winx Club might be mentioned sometimes.

I don't own Winx Club, all rights belong to Rainbow and Iginio Straffi.

My first fan fiction, but critics/flames are accepted and welcomed.

* * *

Ann-Sophie was annoyed. She has just arrived at the school about three ours ago and it already pissed her off. First of all, she really disliked the style of the building. To fucking much pink in her opinion. She hated pink. And the school yard was boring, way to flat for having any possible fun. Then there were the other students. Usually, she had no problems with the way other people dressed, because that was their business, but these fairies just had a too colorful taste in her opinion. They just looked obnoxious. At least, she didn't say anything about it, she knew it would be prejudice to judge people only after their clothes and having different tastes than her. But as good as everyone did just that with her, giving her odd looks and whispering about her appearance. It always pissed her of when some annoying snobs complained about her clothes looking like they only cost fifteen dollar per piece(most time, it was actually less), and as this blond hen with the sluty outfit gave her the advise to buy something that would make her look less like a filthy tramp, she snapped and punched her in the chest, hard enough to make her fall. She didn't mean to strike that hard, but that girl was so weak, it might have been enough to shove her.

And that's the reason why she was here, though. Standing in the headmistress office and pretending to listen to her talking about how young "ladies" should know to behave themselves, such inappropriate behavior not being acceptable and other stuff. While the headmistress who's name she forgot said all that, that Rottweiler Griselda standing next to her and scolding Ann-Sophie with glances, she let her eyes wander around the room (without moving the head to not make it obvious that she was not paying attention) and thought about the possibility that other schools for fairies might be less pink than this one.

When she noticed that the headmistress finished talking and looking expectant at her, she felt like she had to reply, and so she did:

"Of course, I understand. Violence is a bad habit that does not solve anything, I should try to talk things out and behave like a well raised lady. I'll try to make this not happen again and accept the responsibility that comes with being a fairy and staying here. Know I would like to retreat to my room, pack out my stuff and get to know my roommates. Would that be okay?"

The headmistress arched an eyebrow, which let Ann-Sophie knew that she had not gotten all the points of the headmistress's speech with her little mantra. But after a brief moment of silence she was dismissed.

Out of the office, Ann-Sophie could not help but groan quietly. She seriously disliked the two women in that office, Griselda for being a damn controlling Rottweiler and the headmistress because of that (in her opinion) crappy "becoming fine ladies, protecting their realms, harmony with the world, tolerant about everything but stay away from witches" talk. To think that she had to keep up with that for the next three years and having to share a room with one of these fashion obsessed girls.

Being a fairy sucked.

* * *

Anastasia was joyful, although that was not visible on her face, like it was with most of her emotions. Today was the day before semester started, when all the students arrived. After she had taken a look at some of them, Lady Griffin had called her to her office. There they discussed Anastasias unusual circumstances again, like her already living in Cloud Tower since two month, having been trained by Griffin personally, having unique powers and, most important, her past. The discussion was about what of these things Anastasia could tell her classmates, in which cases she should lie and what would be the best cover stories for unpleasant questions.

After they agreed with what she could tell and what not, Lady Griffin brought up another topic. She said that she understood why Anastasia was uneasy with strangers, but explained that it was important for witches to built social bonds with each other and that Anastasia would be considered as Griffins pet if she'd get a one-person room. That's why Griffin decided to put Anastasia in one of the few two-person rooms with a girl that would most likely not give Anastasia any shit because of her unique nature.

Anastasia thought about that development. On one hand, she was really not eager to socialize with anyone she did not know. On the other hand, Lady Griffin was right of course, being the only student with a room for herself would bring her serious trouble with the other students. And in the end, getting to know some students more personal could always come in handy in some way. So she said:

"I see your point Miss Griffin and accept your demand. Thanks again for giving me the chance to create my own destiny. I will not fail your trust. With your permission I will now go to move my things in my new room and meet my roommate."

Lady Griffin dismissed her and Anastasia left the office. Still joyful, she thought about all the opportunities that the semester would give her and how much she liked her knew life. She loved her new gained abilities, her knew home (which was cloud tower as far as she was concerned, and she really loved the architecture) and all the opportunities she now had in life. Once again she mentally thanked Lady Griffin for giving her that chance.

Being a witch was great.

* * *

I know, Anastasia is a bit confusing, her story will be revealed later.

Next time: The girls meet their roommates.


	2. Meeting the roomates

All rights belong to Iginio Straffi and Rainbow, I don't own anything.

* * *

Lea groaned silently while she was walking through jet another corridor.

This was very tiring. After she arrived at the school with a bunch of other freshmen, they were greeted by only one teacher, who had only told them that classes would start tomorrow, after the headmistress gave her speech about the semester. Now they were supposed to go to their rooms and make themselves comfortable. After that statement, the teacher left.

Lea would have been okay with that, if it had not been for the fact that no one of them had a clue where their rooms actually were. So they started searching and soon Lea found herself alone. This building was just so damn big with incredible many corridors, stairs, doors and halls.

First she had just opened every door that looked like a student quarter, but stopped that after one door knob had bitten her. Bitten her, for crying out loud! After that incident, she knocked on the doors, one time that caused an animalistic hiss from the inside of one room.

Then, she entered a section of the Tower where most doors had names on them. She figured that this must be the student quarters. But while other girls found their names on one of the doors, she had no such luck. After she looked twice at every door, she came to the conclusion that there must be another section of Cloud Tower that included student quarters.

Know, after searching for nearly two hours, she had finally found that section. She had no idea if she was downstairs or upstairs, for that she had used far too many stairways in every possible direction and angel. Honestly, she did not care, as long as she would find that stupid room.

Then, finally. She stopped in front of a door with her name on it, Lea Reich. There was another name at the door, Anastasia. That was odd, she thought, most of the student rooms she saw had three-five names on the doors. Well, it was not like she had to be in a crowd to feel comfortable, so she had no problem with it.

Wondering if her roommate would already be there she opened the door and stepped inside.

After she closed the door behind her, she took a look at the room. The size should be comfortable for two people. It was formed like a rectangular, the door in one of the shorter walls. On the opposite wall was a window, the glass was violet, but strangely that didn't affect the sight. All she could see from her view was the blue sky, so she guessed that she was upstairs. In the middle of the room stood two beds with bedside tables, one on each longer wall. They looked a bit Spartan(1), but comfortable enough. In the wall to her left was a closet, in the wall to her right another door, most likely to a bathroom.

Next to the rather large window (indeed almost the entire wall to the outside was filled with violet glass, with a rather small part in the middle that looked like it could actually be opened) was a spiral staircase which led to anther floor of the room, leaving space in the middle and to she wall with the window, means forming an U, with a railing.

Noticing that there already laid some clothes on the bed next to the closet, Lea assumed that her roommate had already arrived.

"Anyone there?" she asked.

"Upstairs." Answered a distant voice from, well, upstairs.

Lea frowned. Seemed like someone didn't like to have long discussions from face to face. She shrugged it of, placing her bag on the free bed next to what she assumed was the bathroom, and then went upstairs. The second floor had some shelves on the walls and tow round tables with three chairs for each of them. One table was placed in the corner next to her, on the opposite side of the huge window. The other one stood on the other point of the U, and there Lea saw her roommate. It was a very surprising sight.

The girl was sitting on a chair, looking out of the window. Her clothes were all red, a short red T-shirt that let the under half of her upper-body visible, short skin-tight red trousers that ended above her knees and red sneakers with white shoelaces.

Aside from her very uniform clothes, her skin was completely white. Really white, like fresh snow, but at the same time as smooth as alabaster. Then there was here hair. It was crimson red like fresh spilled blood. It was bonded to two pigtails above her ears, looking to be half a meter long.

Though Lea had never seen a girl like her, Anastasia if she remembered correctly, it was Anastasias hair that baffled her the most. Not because of how it looked, but because of what it was doing. Anastasia sat in front of a painting that stood on the table, together with some little color-buckets. The painting showed a forest, probably the forest outside of cloud tower, from the viewpoint of their room. Anastasia was drawing on the picture, but not with a brush, her hands rested unmoving in her lap.

It were her pigtails which did the job. While the rest of Anastasias body was completely frozen, her pigtails moved in front of her like bended snakes, dipping themselves in color-buckets and then brushing softly over the painting, adding more color and forms, completing the landscape.

For the next seconds, Lea could only stare at the bizarre scenery. Then she thought, hey, this is a witch-school after all, it's not like my own powers are usual.

"Wow, interesting way to save money for brushes. You'd be Anastasia then, right?"

Anastasias pigtails brushed over the painting two more times, then she turned her head in Leas direction and stood up.

"Yes, that would be me." Anastasia answered while her pigtails dipped into another bucket and whirled their tips inside of it.

"Sorry that I didn't come down when you entered" she continued while her hair got out of the bucket, which was probably filled with water, because now her hair was clean "but I wanted to finish the painting before the color dried." With these words, she took a towel from the back of her chair and dried her hair.

"Oh, no problem. Nice job, by the way. It's a picture of the landscape from the sight of this room right?"

Anastasia walked over to her. "Indeed it is. You probably ask yourself how the painting can already be finished when this is the first day I should be here?"

Lea nodded. Anastasia explained:

"Let's just say, in the last two month I didn't really have a place to be called home, so Lady Griffin allowed me to stay here."

"Nice move. Have you done other paintings in that two month? Because this one looks great."

"Plenty" Anastasia replied "but most of them are not so god, this is a new hobby for me. They are under my bed, I didn't want to decorate the room before you arrived."

"Well, thanks for your consideration. After I have unpacked my stuff we could look through them and decide which one we could use."

"All right. By the way, as you have probably noticed, there is only one closet and one bathroom for the two of us, I hope that is okay for you."

Lea replied: "I suspected that. Do you know why it is like that? Can't the school afford more furniture? Or, maybe some maps for the building? You have no idea how hard it was to find this room in the first place."

Anastasia smiled a bit. "Oh, the school could afford a lot more. The small rooms, the missing maps and even the fact that we have our beds in one room is all part of our practical instruction."

Lea looked confused. "What? How could this be part of our education?"

Anastasia explained. "See, it is all some sort of field practice. The don't give you a map so you learn how to find something in unknown territory. No teacher will show you the way to anything in this school, you have to find it all by yourself to practice your path-finding skills. And if you miss classes because you couldn't find the classroom, you will still get detention.

The thing with the rooms, well, even the quarters for six student have all their beds in the same room, and never more than maybe two closets. This way, the authorities in here want to strengthen our social skills, so that we tie strong bonds between each other through learning to be comfortable and more personal around our roommates. With the reason that witches have to stay together to survive in a world that mistrusts and fears them."

Lea thought about that. "Hm, sounds reasonable. But why do we have quarters like ours, with only two students in it, then?" She asked while going downstairs, unzipping her bag and putting her clothes out.

Anastasia followed her. "Not all girls here are made for social contact, and then there is the thing with having enough space for everyone. This year, the school is filled to her limits, so Lady Griffin had to put some people in the smaller quarters also."

Something on Anastasias voice let Lea suspect that she didn't get the whole story behind that. She also noticed that Anastasia always sounded a bit admiring whenever she mentioned Griffins name. But, it wasn't really her business what her roommate thought about the headmistress, and so far she could not complain about having only one roommate, Anastasia seemed nice enough. A bit distant, but nice enough. So she just nodded, took her clothes and went to the closet.

As she opened it, she saw that it was parted in two half's, the left side was already filled with Anastasias clothes. And they all had one thing in common.

"You know, your part of the closet looks like someone died in there through an enormous blood loss." She joked.

Anastasia shrugged. "Red is my favorite color and only having one color on your clothes makes it easier to decide what you want to wear. I just take one piece from every kind of garment and the result always fits."

Lea chuckled. Indeed, this room should prove to be fun.

* * *

Esther walked silently through the corridors of Alfea. It was already dawning, so she hurried to be in her room before dark, because that would cause her a serious problem. Fortunately she found the room quickly. Aside from her own, there were five other names on the door.

When she passed the door, she found herself in a rather large, quadratic room with two couches and two tables, a big window with a balcony and some plants.

To her relief, the room was empty. Her roommates must have already retrieved to their personal quarters, which where connected with the main room through three doors. That was the reason why she came in so late, she had hoped to avoid the crowds of freshmen on the campus and all five of her roommates in one room. She was scared of crowds. Too many unknown faces, two many possibilities to…… She shoved that thought aside. Until know, it worked, but soon she would be forced to deal with crowds once again. She really hoped that she would be able to leave the past behind her and feel safe in here.

She searched for her name on one of the doors. She found it, together with the name "Ann-Sophie Winter". Oddly, that name shield had a crack.

With a rather bad feeling in her stomach, she opened the door.

Instantly the person that had already been inside, more specific sitting on one of the two beds, jumped off and yelled angrily:

"I've told you guys before, I will not…."

Esther flinched, and the girl stopped. Now Esther was really scared, because the girl looked very frightening. Her skin was dark, her blue eyes cold. Her head was completely shaved. Her body looked rather impressive, she was 1.85m tall. She wore old, blue jeans, worn-out gym-shoes and a white T-shirt. Her free arms showed steeled muscles with that she could most likely break Esther's bones easily. Her expression was angry and annoyed.

Instantly, Esther took two steps back, wishing she'd be anywhere but where she was right now.

As the tall girl saw Esther's scared reaction, her expression softened and became guilty. She took a step back by her own and lifted her hands in a gesture that showed that she meant no harm.

"Oh, I am sorry. I thought you were some other, means one of our other roommates. Sorry that I scared you, I didn't mean it. You okay?"

First Esther only looked at her, still a bit frightened, than she nodded.

Ann-Sophie seemed relieved. "Good, otherwise I'd really have a bad conscience. Well than, step in." She said while rushing to Esther's side, practically shoving her into the room and closing the door. Esther was puzzled when Ann-Sophie took her bag and laid it on the free bed next to the window, although with a balcony.

"So," Ann-Sophie continued, "I guess you already know my name thanks to the name shield on the door. I hope you don't mind that I have already made myself comfortable around here, I tried not to claim all the good places. How does it actually come that you are so late?"

Esther was confused. Her roommate was just odd and so energetic. All her words where accompanied by wide motions of her arms and hands.

She didn't want to explain her fear for strangers and crowds, so she lifted the little flowerpot with the white rose that she held in her hands.

"I bought that flower. It helps me to calm down." Both things were the truth.

Ann-Sophie eyed the flowerpot, looking amused.

"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked.

Esther just shook her head.

Ann-Sophie grinned. "Well, I am sure that we will understand each other perfect then. Yah know, I had a little fight with our lovely roommates before. One of them insulted my outfit, so I insulted all their outfits, and then we all screamed at each other." That memory let her grin even wider. "After that, no one of them wanted to part a room with me, so I solved the problem through ripping my name shield out, doing the same with the other name shield that was originally on this door and changed their places. You don't mind, do you?"

Once again, Esther shook her heat. And she meant it honest. Sure, Ann-Sophie was odd and a bit scary (okay, more than a bit), but at the moment she seemed relaxed and, most importantly, didn't asked her any personal questions. After all, her roommate could have been worse. And the fact that Ann-Sophie was scary, well, if she became closer to her, maybe Ann-Sophie could protect her from others.

With that thought, and, after she looked out of the window and saw that the sun had just disappeared, a very tiered body, she laid down on her bed. Ann-Sophie was still talking, not noticing that Esther already slept deeply, like a plant that only blooms by day.

* * *

I just know there are mistakes with the description of the rooms, feel free to be critic about that. About the coloring, just think about what you saw in the series from the school and take that in the form of my rooms.

(1) I hope that actually means primitive and military.

Next time: Classes.


	3. Classes 1

Sorry, this time it is only Alfeas side of the day, the rest might take a bit, soon I won't be near to a computer for a few days. Well, enjoy and (please) review.

**

* * *

**

Next day:

So far, Ann-Sophie thought the classes were…… irritating.

They already had two classes, transformation and etiquette/mannerisms.

Transformation was okay, except that Ann-Sophie disliked the whole concept of changing her appearance. And the first exercise didn't really light up her mood. The class had to change the color of her hair. When Mr. Wizgiz asked if someone had problems with that, she raised her hand. When he asked her what her problem was, she just glared at him, until her noticed her bald heat. After that, he suggested that she should try her eyebrows instead.

So she tried. First nothing happened, no matter how hard she tried. When the hour was nearly over, every other classmate had fulfilled the task and some girls started to joke about Ann-Sophie's useless attempts, she got angry and then it worked, her eyebrows became violet. In her opinion, pretty ridiculous, and after Wizgiz noted that she was successful, she tried to change the color back, and that was surprisingly easy for her.

Her theory was, that is was a question of will. She really had no desire to change her appearance. So it didn't work because she didn't want it to work. But as some people made jokes about her lack of success, she wanted to succeed to silence them. That worked. And the change to her original hair-color was so easy because she really wanted it to be back to normal.

After the etiquette lesson was over, she decided that this was her most hated class. And she hated that teacher with the long, white hair and that stupid hat (And once again, she had forgotten the name). Always these talks about the class learning to be "ladies" and nice behavior and learning to dance and how to have a polite conversation.

Damn it, she was not a stupid lady, she was a fairy and nothing more! And until now, a fist in the face had always solved all of her problems. Why should she _talk_ with people she did not like?! And she was so not into dancing, that ability was just useless. And it looked stupid.

Esther, on the other hand, had less problems with the classes. Transformation was easy, she needed mere seconds to change the color of her green hair to blue (and decided not to tell the teacher that she actually intended it to become yellow). And she also liked Wizgiz so far, he was a funny guy and one of the few persons that didn't scare her at first contact.

In etiquette, she could not understand what kind of problem her roommate had with Miss Dufour, because she was a very kind and soft person. Learning how to behave right under the right circumstances was also easy, she was very shy and sensitive, so there was no problem with her maybe being offensive.

Dancing was a quite nice thing, it also helped her to relax. Fortunately, today they only learned the basics, alone. She was not eager to dance with someone, she had huge problems with being so close to other people. The best would be to pair up with Ann-Sophie.

By that thought, she must smile. In the morning, her other four roommates had given her pitying looks for having to share a room with such an aggressive fellow like Ann-Sophie and actually tried to comfort her. She waved it of. Sure, Ann-Sophie could be very aggressive, but only if she wanted to, and that was only when other people irritated her. Most people at Alfea irritated her because they gave her odd looks or/and whispered about her behind her back. Well, a harsh glare silenced most of them, even sophomores, because she was such an impressive figure.

However, Ann-Sophie had no such problems with Esther. Well, in difference to her, Esther easily fit in with the other fairies, being rather small, having a soft body, a cute face and shiny long hair. But, in difference to most other fairies, Esther didn't even seem to notice Ann-Sophie's unfitting appearance. And, what Ann-Sophie liked most, she didn't seem to care for trends and fashion, her clothes were regular and cheap.

During the day, Esther didn't retreat from Ann-Sophie's side. She was comfortable with her, because after the little outburst yesterday, she had made no more harsh motions towards her and they only had casual conversations, without personal questions. Most important, other students avoided Ann-Sophie, so they also avoided Esther as long as they stayed together. That for Esther was very great full, she was afraid of social contact. With Ann-Sophie, she felt save, a feeling that she had missed for a long time.

Now, they had a lesson in magic-combat, with professor Palladium. Thee class was placed in a large, empty room. Palladium spelled some sort of shooting range inside of it. A red line on the ground showed where the students were supposed to stay. Fifteen meters away stood a wooden target, a circle in white and red, flowing in the air.

Palladium placed the girls in a line. They were supposed to attempt the range one after another, telling their name, realm and power, then transform and attack the target, so that Palladium would get a picture of their fighting style, part them into groups and develop a plan to teach them the best way.

And so it happened. While transforming, some girls yelled the name of their planet, their family, or their own name. A lot of students had already formed groups and yelled their names while transforming, a custom that had established since the time of the Winx Club.

The wooden circle was attacked with beams, blast and balls from different types of energy. Sometimes the target broke, sometimes it burned down, and sometimes it even vanished from the forces thrown at it. But every time, it repaired itself or reappeared out of nowhere after every assault. Meanwhile Palladium made notes for every student.

When it was Esther's turn, she stated in a shy and quiet voice:

"Esther Kraft. Realm unknown. Roses."

Then, she shouted "_Rosaceous_"(1), lit up in a green light and changed.

Her new outfit was a surprising sight. Some students gasped, one screamed, all (also An-Sophie) stared. Palladium arched an eyebrow and that was it.

Esther now wore a skirt out of red rose-leafs, rose-leafs also covered her breast. Green, thorny tendrils were wrapped around her upper body, her arms and legs, hold through thorns that stuck in her body. But that was not the shocking thing.

She had no wings! Every fairy had wings, everyone individual looking. But where Esther's wings were supposed to be was nothing but flesh and tendrils.

Ann-Sophie was surprised, but thought that the outfit looked interesting in many ways, so she just gave it a approving look. Meanwhile, other students started to whisper and speculate. Palladium silenced them with a glance, then he nodded to a very unsure Esther.

She gulped, than lifted her right arm and held her palm in the direction of the target.

Dozens of little thorns appeared in front of her hand and shot forward. 2/3 of the thorns missed, the rest landed in the side of the target and stuck there. Esther corrected her aim, shot again, and this time all thorns hit correctly.

No much damage was done, though, the thorns only bored millimeters into the wood. Once again, the target repaired automatically and all the thorns fell out.

Palladium asked his standard question:

"Any other ways for you to attack the target?"

"That for I had to go nearer." Came a shy reply.

"No problem with that."

Esther nodded and took some steps forward, until she was ca. ten meters away from the target. This time she lifted her left arm into a horizontal position, her fingers pointing to the ground. Suddenly, the tendrils around the arm clung even harder to her skin, the thorns pressed deeper inside, without Esther showing any sign of pain. Then, three tendrils, one ending on her palm and two on the back of her hand, starting to grow, while wrapping around each other, until they reached the floor.

Esther raised her arm, swinging the tendrils like a whip, lashed forward while the tendrils were growing again and stroke the target. There was a ripping sound, and now the target had a big scratch on it, most likely five cm deep.

The tendrils grew back and Esther changed back. After Palladium said that she did fine and the next had her turn, Esther moved out of the way. Ann-Sophie held up her thump and smiled encouraging. Esther just nodded.

Now it was Ann-Sophie's turn. With a confident voice, she stated:

"Ann-Sophie Winter. Realm is Akloriad. My power is darkness." (The last thing brought her curios, surprised and disgusted looks)

Then she transformed. Two things surprised the audience. First, she said nothing while transforming. Second, she lit up in a black light. Usually fairies transformed in bright colors.

Or wore bright outfits. Ann-Sophie now wore a pitch-black halter top, black trousers, skintight and ending above her knees. In difference to other fairies, she had no high-heels, but pitch-black shoes which looked like they were part of iron armor. Out of the same "iron" were her two gloves, also looking like part of a knight's armor. Her wings had sharp ends and looked like they could be used to stab someone. Like two short, but broad sabers.

Her outfit caused almost as much whispering as Esther's, and once again Palladium couldn't care less, silenced the other students and nodded to Ann-Sophie.

What she did surprised everyone.

She ran towards the target, raised her right hand, made a fist and charged the target. She hit it right into the middle and her black fist burst through the wood with a splitting crash. Huge cracks drew through the whole circle.

Many of the other students had their mouth hanging open and even Palladium blinked surprised. After he got his act back together, he said:

"Well, Miss Winter, that was an impressive performance of physical strength. But the lesson was supposed to be about attacks from a distance."

Ann-Sophie laughed sarcastically.

"If you'd have listened, my power is darkness. Might sound scary, but look."

She pulled her forearm out of the already repairing target and created a black orb around her hand. Then she moved the orb to the target, so that a part of it was into the black energy. When she pulled the orb back, nothing had happened.

"See, I can only create darkness, and when I hit something with it, it just gets dark. No harm."

Palladium thought about that.

"Good, I am sure we can find a way to work with that. Any other ways for you to attack the target?"

Ann-Sophie only smirked and moved her attention back to the repaired target. Darkness emerged from her entire body, grew and soon she and the target disappeared in a big ball of darkness.

"Jaaaaahhhhhh!!"

SCHINK

Klonk

Instantly, the darkness vanished. Only one half of the target was still flowing, the other half laid on the floor, next to Ann-Sophie. Now her gloves had expended and covered her forearms in some kind of armor. On the underside of the armor were two 1.50m long blades, all black, one on each arm. And the right one ended in a position that fit right in with the angel of the cut at the target.

Ann-Sophie took a step back, lowered her arms and the blades vanished, together with the extra armor around her forearm. Then she changed back to normal.

"That's it."

"Hm, you surly are a different student. That was a magic weapon at your hands, right?" Palladium asked.

"Doy." Ann-Sophie answered "of course it was. My father made it for me. The shoes are a part of it and can also morph. It is bonded to my transformation and appears as soon as I transform."

"According to your home realm, I guess it is out of Orialcon(2)."

"Correct." Ann-Sophie confirmed surprised. She didn't expect a teacher at a fairy School to know about magic weapons for close combat.

Palladium continued: "All right, next one."

While the rest of the class showed their destructive skills, Ann-Sophie got back to Esther. She was impressed. She had expected to be scolded for bringing a weapon into the school and that there would be problems for the teachers to work with her unusual fighting style, but Palladium seemed to have no problem with that. Maybe his school was not as bad as she thought.

* * *

Next time: Anastasia and Lea at their first day of school with some unorthodoxy ways of teaching.

(1)I guess that is Latin for rose.

(2)Yes yes, that name is from the anime "black cat", but I couldn't think of another name for a light, but very solid sort of steel.


	4. Classes 2

Once again, I don't own anything, all rights belong to rainbow.

Sorry for the delay. This chapter has become way bigger than I planned.

* * *

So far, Anastasia thought the classes were….. interesting.

After Lady Griffin gave her speech about the new semester (Which she found very impressive) her class had magic-combat and espionage.

In combat magic, they were supposed to learn how to create a bolt. When Lea asked Anastasia why they all learned how to fire a bolt, if they all had different powers that had nothing to do with bolts, Anastasia explained:

"That's part of our social training. Witches are supposed to work together, so that means fighting together too. The clue is, a bolt is a very effective weapon, fast and destructive. Know, if we all know how to fire bolts, we all have an effective weapon against all sorts of trouble. So, first we are trained in some techniques that every witch can do, like bolts and energy shields. After that, we learn how to improve our original power. Then, when we fight opponents, we are supposed to fight them with uniform techniques. Our personal powers are supposed to be used against serious cases. Now, the trick is, when we always fight others with bolts, they will be overwhelmed when they are suddenly attacked with things like for example magma ore rocks. So we shall hide our powers until it is too late for our enemies to prepare for them."

"Okay" Lea replied "how does it come that you seem to know as much as any teacher around here?"

"I have been very busy in the last two month." That was the only answer she got.

Though Anastasia knew allot, her magic skills were another story. While Lea managed to create a little bolt after six attempts (it shot out of her palm, every witch had her personal body parts to create energy. Some fired out of there fingers, others their fists, some had to clap their hands together and so on), Anastasia was not able to manage one single bolt, no matter how hard she tried. Strangely, she didn't seem to be sad or surprised about that. And the teacher said nothing about it.

In espionage, they where taught to collect information's about persons, come to the right conclusions about special circumstances and use that to their own advantage. While Anastasia appeared to be a natural, Lea had some problems, she was more for the direct approach than sneaking around in the shadows and gather information.

Despite the fact that Anastasia was very closed up and didn't seem to be really honest, Lea still hung around with her. At first, Anastasia didn't mind that and in some way Lea felt sympathy towards her. Second, without Anastasias lead Lea would have never been able to find any classroom in the tower, not before the lesson was already over. Like many other freshmen did and got detention for that.

Know they had a lesson in flying. Lea figured that this class would take place on the highest platform, and she was right.

After the class was gathered on top of the highest platform of the tower, the teacher asked who was already able to fly.

A bit more than half of the class lifted their arms. Anastasia and Lea were not under them.

Next, the teacher placed the students on the edge of the (railing-less) platform. She stood in the middle. The students built a circle around her, the ones who said that they could already fly stood behind her. He teacher said:

"The task for today is to return to the platform. Anyone who succeeded in that can help the others. One last question. Is anyone scared of heights?"

A few arms were lifted.

"I couldn't care less."

With these words, the teacher fired two beams out of her hands on the ground. That created a shockwave out of violet energy which swept the surprised students screaming about the edge and let them fall downwards.

Yelling desperately, Lea fell towards the earth. She closed her eyes and prayed desperately for the fall to end.

Meanwhile, Anastasia stayed calm. She had attempt that test a dozens of times and knew that she was not able to fly for some unknown reason. But that for she had a plan.

While falling, she lifted her pigtails and stretched them to an incredible length, making them appear like tentacles. Her hair got a hold on one of the many spikes on the building. Her pigtails wrapped around it and she used that to swing herself to the tower, while her hair already reduced its length.

Then her feet hit the building. With her hair still wrapped around the spike, she pulled herself upstairs. As she reached the spike, she got a hold on it with her hands. Her hair let the spike go, stretched again upwards and got a hold on a window-sill. She pulled herself upwards again. This way, she climbed back to the top of the platform.

In the meantime, Lea wondered why she had not hit the ground already. Slowly she opened her eyes. She noticed that she was lying in the air, in the position she had while falling down, head downwards, and feet upwards. Not daring to move much of her body, she moved her heat and glanced around.

All students that were blown from the platform were now in the air, surrounding the tower. Some of them flew around, others hung in the air like her, others laid in a green sphere a few meters under her.

Suddenly, one of the flying students flew towards her. She had grey, almost silver hair, which was bonded in a ponytail. Her green eyes sparkled in the sun. She was dressed in a silver T-shirt, a blue jeans and white gym shoes. Grinning, she said:

"How lazy of you to just hang around during a lesson."

Lea sighed. "FUUUUNNNNNNYYYY. Could you please tell my why I am not dead? Or help me back to solid ground?"

The strange girl smirked. "You are not dead because you just learned to fly. My older sister told me that they pull this stunt every year. They blast the students from the tower to force them to fly. You just managed to stop your fall. Students who can't do even that are saved through that sphere under us." She pointed at the people downwards. "Now, all students are supposed to fly back to the platform, while guys like me help them with it."

"Okay, thanks. And how exactly does flying work?"

"Hmm, good question. First, since when do you know that you are a witch? Were you raised by witches? Or other magical beings?"

Lea shook her heat. "I just found out four month ago. Before I only lived with my dad. Both of us didn't knew that mommy was a witch. And daddy is no wizard, so the whole magic thing is new to me."

The green-eyed girl frowned. "To bad. Well, my mother explained it to me this way: First, you have to believe that you can fly. _Fairies_" she spoke that word like others would speak the word bitch "have the advantage that their wings make it easier for them to believe that they can fly. Young witches often have problems to accept that they can fly just like that without suddenly dropping out of the sky. But see. You are in the air and not dropping, right?"

"Right."

"So if that is possible, it should also be possible for you to stand in the air instead of hanging."

Lea groaned.

"Boy, I hope so. This is both embarrassing and uncomfortable."

"You have my sympathy." The girl replied in a tone that made clear that she had way to much fun to feel real sympathy. "Okay, know just concentrate on not dropping while moving into a standing position. If you drop, I will catch you."

Lea looked skeptical. "Okay, but could you tell me your name first? I'd like being able to curse the person who didn't catch my when I fell to my death."

The grey-haired girl chuckled. "You are such a downer. Well, my name is Judith Calbourne, and know get going before I beat you up for wasting my precious time." She threaded mockingly.

Lea rolled her eyes, made a mental note to never let her guard down towards anything in this crazy school, then she tightened her muscles and swung her legs downward, getting into a standing position. As soon as she managed that and felt no ground under her feet, she fell once more. Gasping, she prayed for solid ground and instantly stopped falling.

Blinking, she first looked down. She was still in the air, but it felt like she'd be standing on hard earth. Then she looked up. Judith was like four meters over her, and had not moved an inch.

"Hey" Lea complained "you liar didn't even try to catch me."

Judith grinned. "If I wouldn't have told you to catch you, you might have not moved. By the way, if you hadn't been able to stop your fall the sphere would have saved you. But back to the main topic, you are standing in the air. Do you think you can do something else?"

Lea thought about that. She was indeed standing in the air, and it felt like she'd be standing on solid ground, so maybe…..

Closing her eyes, she took a step forward. Nothing. After opening her eyes again, she started to walk. Still she didn't fall.

A warm feeling run through Lea. Being here, hundreds of meters above the earth but not falling and wandering around just like that….. felt just right. So wonderful right. Smiling, she continued walking, started to run, spread her arms and laughed cheerfully.

Suddenly, Judith appeared in front of her, holding up her right hand and showing her palm in a gesture that without a doubt meant:

"_STOP_! As amusing as your happy moment might be, and believe my, it is amusing, I have no intention to watch you running around like a maniac the entire day. Understood?"

Lea blushed. "Sorry" she said quite ashamed "I got caught up in the moment."

Judith rolled her eyes. "Whatever, lets finish this. Now that you are able to stay in the air, you just have to learn to move in more ways than horizontal. Unfortunately your way of flying seems to be different from mine. Let's see, how do you think do you manage to fly? I fly through imagining that I am lighter than air and that my willpower can move me. Then I just think about where to I want to fly and my magic does the rest."

Lea rested her index-finger on her chin and looked thoughtfully in the sky.

"Hmm, I guess that I just imagine that there is solid ground under my feet and that's enough to keep me here. That would mean my flying is based on the thought that my surroundings are not how they really are. Now, if I would imagine that the ground is actually above me and the gravitation pull should WHHHHHAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Lea screamed while suddenly shooting up into the sky. Judith blinked, then she gave chase.

After they passed the height of cloud tower, Lea abruptly stopped "falling" upwards and Judith crushed into her.

"Au" she groaned, rubbing her temple "curse your hard bones. I hope that little stunt was worth it."

"Yes!" beamed Lea "I've got it! All I have to do is thinking that I should fall in a specific direction and then…"

She shot forward, then stopped after five meters.

"WHOHO!"

Enthusiastic, she shot upwards, downwards, to the right, to the left, and giggled childish while doing so.

Meanwhile, back on the platform, Anastasia watched the scene. Although she was not the first one to return, nobody noticed her sneaking back onto the platform. After she was back, her eyes searched for Lea. After she found her and saw the girl with the grey hair helping her, she recalled everything she knew about that specific girl. Then she analyzed what her roommate was getting herself into through accepting help from that person. She didn't like her conclusion the slightest.

Back upwards, a rather annoyed Judith screamed at Lea: "Enough already! I admit that I've also been eager to use my new ability after I learned to fly, but this is a god damn school lesson, so we have a deadline, and I am so goanna get you if I get problems for being late."

A little bit ashamed, Lea stopped whizzing around like crazy. She gave Judith a remorseful glance. She just rolled her eyes, motioned Lea to follow and flew back to the platform. Lea followed, not nearly as graceful as Judith, she raced uncontrolled towards the platform, stopped two meters above its ground, let herself fall and landed on her feet next to Judith.

"Thanks allot for your help. I owe you."

Judith smirked in response. "That's what my help was all about. You better don't forget that. Ciao."

With that, Judith left a confused Lea and jumped from the platform again, flying to other students who had still problems with flying.

"I see that you have already gotten yourself into serious trouble."

Lea jumped and spun around to Anastasia, who had appeared behind her, with a cold, disapproving look on her face.

"Trouble? What trouble?"

Instead of an answer, she got another question.

"That girl, what was her name? Her full name."

"Äh… Calbourne. Judith Calbourne. Why is that…"

Anastasia interrupted her: "I feared so. Listen carefully. Judith is a princess. She comes from an old, proud line of witches who have been the rulers of their realm for centuries. Her family is a matriarchate and all of their women follow a strict honor code. And you just got yourself involved into it."

Lea blinked. "Come again? She just helped me to learn flying."

"She did not just help you, she made a treaty with you. As she is doing right now with every other student she helps. In her culture it is common that you owe a debt to the person that helped you once. You have to repay the debt through helping that person in a task she asks you for. If you refuse to help her, you will not only lose all of her respect, you will also insult her honor. And her family takes insults very seriously. To make things worse, as a princess she most likely had excellent private tutors before she enrolled here, and her line is also famous for their skills in their own sorts of material arts. Means, if you ignore the debt you owe to her, she has everything she needs to get after you. And believe my, she will if you give her a reason."

Lea closed her eyes and shook her head in denial.

"No no no. That is just sick. You told me that witches are supposed to work together, so why am I now caught up in some crazy old traditions with a princess using me for her own benefit? Why does everything in this stupid school have to be a challenge? Hell, why am I even here? I've never asked for having these powers. So why do I have to live in a place that is dark 24 hours a day full of people who make decisions about my very life!?"

Her voice became more desperate and she started to tremble. It was just unfair. She had been happy with her life, until her powers activated and she had to enroll here. She had to leave all the people she loved, knowing that she had to if she wanted to control her powers in order not to hurt her beloved. But this place and its weird rules was just such a burden.

While Lea was drowning in depression, Anastasia found herself confronted with a feeling she never felt before. Pity. She realized that she had foolishly assumed that Lea would think like her about being a witch, and didn't consider that Lea came most likely came from a completely different background than her.

She didn't really know what to do with this new feeling. Actually she believed that feelings for other people were a weakness, something that'd only hinder you from thinking clearly and doing the right things for yourself. Neither did she believe in friendship, she thought that this was only an excuse to get something without giving anything in return.

But now, seeing her roommate in such a state, she remembered the times in that she was also desperate and cursed her life, desperately trying to stand the pressure, but slowly dying inside through the cruelties of the people around her. Until the day she found her powers and with that a way to fight back, until Lady Griffin found her and freed her from the hell which was her life.

She had been alone that time, and Griffin helped her.

Now, Lea was in a desperate situation, finding herself in surroundings which rules she did not understand, and people trying to manipulate her.

Telling herself that this was just about helping someone who might help her later, she rested a comforting hand on Leas shoulder. Lea opened her eyes and looked her into the eyes.

"See" Anastasia started in a soft voice "I am not good with this emotional stuff, but I'll try. I have always seen my powers as a gift, so I didn't consider that you might see them as a burden. I can understand that you are confused from the rules in could tower, but try to see it this way. Witches are feared and hated all over the magic dimension, especially after the Trix-incident a few years ago. True, that's why witches should stick together, but this school is about more than that. There is a motto: "If you survive cloud tower, you survive everything." All students are in an endless competition with each other, about things like power, knowledge, abilities or popularity. During the years, some sort of hierarchy has developed. It is a hard thing, but it prepares you on your life after school. Out there, people might try to manipulate or seduce you to find ways to get rid of you or blame you for something they did because as a witch you are some sort of perfect scapegoat. Here, your classmates are only trying to manipulate you to prove that they are better than you or learn how to manipulate. But they are not going to harm you. Use you maybe, but not put you in serious danger."

"Why didn't you tell my anything about that in the first place?" Lea asked accusing.

Anastasia shrugged. "You didn't ask and I thought it might be be better for you to find it out by yourself. Maybe that was a mistake. But listen, how about I explain you all the unwritten rules of the school after the classes are over. And if you want to talk about what's bugging you, I am there. And this is an offer I've never made before." Now her tone was serious.

Leas mood lit up. "Thank you. I needed that. The support, I mean. It's just that everything has become so complicated since I am a witch, and I prefer to have things under control. But hey, it's not like everything is bad, mainly I like my powers, especially the flying. Okay, you can explain the things I should know and what for I should watch out. But not everything, just the most important things, I guess you are right with that _better learn it the hard way_. We can see about the changing life stories later. And if you ever feel the need to talk, I'll be there too."

Anastasia waved the last statement off. "Sorry, I admit that I like you, but for me doing that we'd have to come MUCH closer, and the possibility for that is very rare."

Lea chuckled. That was one thing she liked about Anastasia. She was honest to everything but herself. For her it was obvious that her red-haired roommate was more close to her than Anastasia was willing to admit.

* * *

Hope you liked it. I will explain the rules in cloud tower later, it wouldn't be good for the story to tell them now and the chapter is already almost double the size of Alfeas side of the story.

Please review.

Next time: First meeting between Anastasia and Ann-Sophie, first fights.


	5. Rumble in Magix

I don't own anything, all rights belong to rainbow. Well, I do own my own characters.

Finally, the next chapter, my longest so far. Listening to Three days grace while writing really helps.

So, this is the first time that I wrote fights in english, hope I didn't screw up. And this chapter introduces my favorite side-character.

Warning: Contains hard swear words on Ann-Sophie's side, sorry, but that's just a part of her. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

"So why exactly don't you want to come?" Ann-Sophie asked her roommate, after Esther had refused to accompany her on a little walk to Magix.

"See" Esther tried to explain "I don't really like cities. Too much cars smoking the air, too much ways to get lost, too less plants, dirty air and too much strange people."

"Oh really, they won't bite."

"I am not afraid of them biting." Esther said quiet, in a tone that let Ann-Sophie presume that Esther was afraid of strangers doing much worse things to her, things that had already been done to her.

"Okay" she said after a while "then I will scout the city by my own. But I give you a advise, don't spent your entire day in our room. You should at least wander around a bit at campus. Sure, the outside of Alfea is a bit boring with being flat and seriously, that well looks a bit kitschy, but you know, just breath some fresh air, get to know the school and some other students. And you really don't have to be afraid of the other students, I doubt that they would do anything to you in a place were the entire teacher-staff would search you if you'd disappear."

Esther frowned. "I'll think about it."

Ann-Sophie signed. She'd really had to do something about the social skills of her roommate. She had no problems with being a pariah, but she thought that Esther really needed some people to talk to who might be more sensitive than her. She said goodbye and headed towards Magix.

* * *

"So why exactly do you want me to come with you." Asked Anastasia after her roommate had suggested a little trip to Magix.

"Well" Lea answered "We've made our homework, its three pm and the sun is shining, So I don't see why we should remain in our room the entire day. And please don't say drawing, learning or categorizes our classmates after possible threats or allies, I don't have a hobby yet, I think I've learned enough for today and hell, right now I don't care about any plots and schemes in this school."

Anastasia signed. "Okay, than give me a good reason why we should go, except fresh air. Yet we have no connections in the city and I know about nothing worth inspecting there."

Now Lea signed. "This is exactly why we should go. I am getting the impression that everything is some sort of big spy-game to you. This world is not only about who knows who and what and how to use that for the own sake, its also about having fun, chilling out." One look in her face made it clear that she didn't convince Anastasia, so she continued "By the way, I have never been to Magix before, and you seem to know everything, so you could help me find the right places and don't get lost."

For a moment, Anastasia waged up her possibilities, then she said: "Fine, I'll go with you. I know the location of a witch pup in downtown. Guess you will like it there, normally any plots or struggles are banned from that place."

Lea beamed on that.

* * *

Anastasia walked down the alley, thinking she should have never come to the pup in the first place, it has been a complete waste of time. How Lea had ever gotten her to come was beyond her.

"Hey, witch!" someone behind her shouted suddenly.

Anastasia froze instantly. Slowly she turned around to face whoever called her.

In the entrance of the alley stood five girls around her age, probably a bit older. They all wore rather colorful, expensive designer clothes, light colors only and had rather complicated haircuts.

Anastasia knew immediately that they were Alfea fairies. Although she was annoyed, she just asked casual:

"What?" After all, she had no fight with them, also they were her unpleasant in some way, but she didn't gave much to feelings when handling strangers, she relied on facts.

One of the girls took a step forward. She wore short, blue and silver clothes that looked like they cost a fortune. Her blue hair reached down to her throat. Seemed to be the leader of the party. Although she still was six meters away, Anastasia knew a thread when she saw one, and the body language of the girl just screamed "I am goanna eat you alive".

The leader answered her with a nasty voice:

"Well, we were just asking our self what a little witch could possible be up to in a dark alley, so we came to make clear that you are not planning some scheme to hurt anyone."

`Oh great´ thought Anastasia while mentally rolling her eyes, `A bunch of prejudice fairies is just what I need to make this day perfect.´

"My only scheme is to let my feet carry me back to cloud tower, so you can find another way to save the world." She retorted, turned around and started to walk away. But after she had done two steps, there was a thunder-like crack and two of the fairies appeared in front of her, five meters away in a rain of golden sparks.

She froze. Seems that the fairies did not intent to let her leave.

"Oh no, you won't get away that easy, witch." The leader behind her stated. "Every single witch wants to cause harm, so we are going to stop you now before _someon_e gets hurt."

Anastasia recognized the joyful emphasis that was given the word "someone". Just perfect, that kind of fairies. It's true, a lot of witches would pummel a fairy if they had the chance to do it, but there were also some fairies which would eagerly do the same to every witch they found alone, not because the wanted to save someone, but because they would easily get away with it. If they claimed that their victim had attacked them first it'd be the word of a fairy against that of a witch, and many people would believe the fairy. Most likely, the witch would never say anything about it, because it was a great shame for every witch to be defeated by fairies, even when outnumbered. And it seems that she has just been caught by a bunch of arrogant fairies that enjoyed bullying lonely witches.

She thought about her options. Fleeing would be the most logical solution, but she could not fly and both ways out of the alley were blocked. Talking would do no good either, it would most likely only make the fairies more eager to get her. So the last option left seemed fighting. It was very doubtful that she could win, but she'd be damned if she made it easy for these spoiled bitches! Shifting her legs into position, she took in a battle stance and thought about if she should attack the two fairies in front of her or the three behind her first, when suddenly a new voice yelled:

"Whatever is going on here, stop it right now!"

Everyone jumped and whirled around to the source of the voice.

In the entrance of the alley stood another girl, her arms crossed. She wore ordinary, cheap looking clothes, her skin was as brown as chocolate and her blue eyes seemed to challenge everyone while she watched the scene.

Everyone was too surprised to answer, so the newcomer continued talking.

"As much as I appreciate a little violence now and then, I doubt that five against one would be a fair fight. So does anyone care to fill me in?"

The leader of the fairies was obviously angry about the uncalculated witness, but she hided that and answered:

"Oh, nothing to worry about, this vicious witch was just attacking us for no reason, but we've got the situation under control, so you can leave it to us." The last part of her answer was a clear demand for the girl to go.

Anastasia groaned. Of course, they blamed her to be the aggressor, and the girl would most likely believe that or leave for not having to mess with five fairies. So she was surprised when she heard the girl chuckle.

"Now, that's a good one. I don't know many witches, but I highly doubt any of them would be so dump to oppose five senior fairies all alone. And then there is the fact that no one of you looks even bruised, but you are the one who block the entrances of the ally, so I suppose that you are the aggressors here."

That did surprise Anastasia. That girl was either very brave or very foolish to interfere in the business of angry fairies.

One of the fairies asked annoyed:

"So even if we are, what does that puny witch care to you? Who are you anyway? Another witch?" Now she her tone was threatening.

"No" another one of the fairies answered for the girl, sounding utterly baffled "she's not a witch. Just feel for her aura….. That's a fairy!!"

THAT statement made everyone silent. Many jaws dropped, and Anastasia was as surprised as the others. True, know that she felled for it she could tell that the blue-eyed girl was a fairy indeed, but she hadn't thought that a fairy could look so…….so _boyish_. Sure, she had clear female attributes and also her face looked feminine, but it was her whole appearance that made her look out of the ordinary fairy cliché. She just had too much muscle! Anastasia might have never met a fairy personally (until now), but she knew that normal fairies were in a rather weak physical condition, because they were used to their magic for defending themselves (not that it was different with most witches). It's not like she looked like a bodybuilder, but still, what was to see from her skin, means her arms, gave the impression that she had a steeled body that could stand allot of physical strain. The fact that she was rather tall also helped to make her appearance both impressive and frightening. Most fairies and witches only reached specialists to their chins, but this girl looked like many boys would need to look up to her if they intended to look into her eyes.

Than there was her clothing. Fairies just did not dress like that. The five slugs that had her surrounded showed what ordinary fairies used to wear, all sorts of short and colorful clothes, together with haircuts that might need an hour to make. The new girl looked nothing like that! Her clothes seemed to be second hand, her gym shoes looked but five years old, her blue jeans had huge gray parts and holes, her grey shirt was just that, grey, and her hair, well, she had a damn bald head! Not that Anastasia had a problem with the way the strange girl was dressed, it was just so out of normal, and Anastasia hated it when the things were not as she thought they were.

Once again everyone in the alley was out of words, which seemed to amuse the new girl. Smirking, she took over the talking part again:

"Well, yeah, I have just started my first year. Alfea is actually a funny place, but a little bit to pink in my opinion, what do you say?"

The expressions of the five fairies changed from shocked to disgust. The leader addressed the girl once more:

"Alright then you pest, first you should know that we don't waste our time with lousy freshmen, especially those who side with dirty witches. So second, move your filthy ass away from here right now, or we will blast you back into the hole you came from."

Despite of the obvious insult, the smirk of the bald headed girl only grew while she walked over to the leader, like it would not mean anything to her that she walked right into a bunch of senior fairies who would most likely have ALLOT more power and experience in combat magic than she had. She stopped barley 10cm in front of the blue-haired girl. Then she asked:

"So let me get this straight. You expect me to just walk away and let you beat the hell out of this girl whose only crime is to have crossed your way?" She managed to sound curious and dangerous at the same time.

The addressed girl tried to act like she was not bothered buy the blue-eyed girl, who was several inches taller than her, but a gulp pretty much ruined that. Her voice almost trembled when she answered:

"You've got it, now leave before you'll regret it."

Now the smirk of the bald-headed girl became a devilish, satisfied grin.

"I so hoped that you'd say that."

Before anyone could react, she suddenly rammed her right fist into the stomach of the senior. Her victim let out a shocked gasp, then she first fell to her knees, her hands on her stomach, than her body collapsed completely and she crumbled on the ground, painfully gasping for air.

Everyone at the scene froze out of shock, while the blue-eyed girl just walked over the fairy and took position next to Anastasia, in a battle stance, fists up, facing the two girls next to the crumbling leader.

"Need a little help?" She asked Anastasia.

Anastasia shot her an odd glance, then she replied:

"Do as you please."

At first the other seniors seemed to be unsure what to do, now that their leader was down all of a sudden and they've got a fairy as witness. But then the leader managed to gasp: "G-get them!" and they moved to attack.

* * *

Ann-Sophie charged towards her two opponents next to the crumbling leader, who did a big mistake. They yelled: "DRAGONFLYS GO!!" and lit up in a yellow and a white light while transforming.

Ann-Sophie smirked, knowing from own experience that a fairy could not see anything while lighting up. With a jump, she brought herself between her enemies, turning to the one on the left side. She smacked the girl, who know wore a light-blue and with outfit with huge wings in circle-form, on the cheek before she even noticed that Ann-Sophie was no longer in front of her.

Like she planned, Ann-Sophie heard the crackle of energy behind her. She ducked as fast as she could, just in time that the lightning the fairy behind her fired at her back missed and hit the other fairy into the chest instead, sending the girl unconscious to the ground.

While the attacker yelped in surprise, Ann-Sophie rolled backwards, into a sitting position and swept the legs from the fairy that shot the lightning, now wearing a yellow outfit, out from underneath her. The girl landed painfully on her butt and Ann-Sophie quickly kicked her into the kidney, making her groan in pain and unable to continue the fight.

Satisfied, Ann-Sophie stood up. When she saw that the leader of the fairies did the same thing and lifted her arm towards her, she sent her back to the ground through striking her on the temple.

After that, she looked how the sweet white girl in that nice red outfit was doing.

* * *

In the meantime, Anastasia had less luck, her opponents didn't transform. Instead, one of them threw a green orb at her. Anastasia easily avoided that through just stepping aside, but that seemed to be what the fairies wanted, because instantly some sort of lasso out of orange energy thrown by the other fairy was wrapped around her upper-body, pressing her arms (and pigtails) against her body, bonding her that way.

With a triumphant smile, her captor pulled Anastasia closer, letting her stumble forwards.

"Finish that pathetic witch!" the girl told her companion. In response, the fairy raised her arms and started to form a new green orb, this time bigger.

Anastasia snarled. She could not fly. She could not shoot orbs or beams of energy. She could not create shields. She couldn't even move things through thoughts. But she had some other nice tricks.

Her two pigtails grew and lashed out, easily breaking the energy lasso, and smacked against the chest of the fairy creating the orb, sending her flying into the next wall, screaming surprised and painfully, knocking her out.

The remaining fairy was taken aback by someone being able to break free from her lasso, but when she saw Anastasia directing her attention at her, she reacted fast and shot an orange energy-beam at the witch.

Anastasias pigtails moved, crossing each other and building an X in front of her chest. The beam hit the X directly into its centre and the hair actually stopped the energy. Then both pigtails were lifted into the air and stroke down at the fairy. The girl managed to bring up her arms and create an energy-shield, stopping the hair, but meanwhile Anastasia had already taken three steps towards the fairy and now stood in front of her. She grabbed the fairy's face and left arm.

Anastasia knew that her powers were not only about her hair, but also about her blood. She could manipulate it and that of others too, as long as she had skin-contact. Now, she was pulling all the heat of the fairy's blood into her own .As consequence, the body of her enemy became cold and started to get stiff. The fairy only managed a surprised outcry and tried to move away, but then her expression froze, like her entire body.

Anastasia shoved the girl a bit and she landed on her back, as stiff as a statue.

Before the red-haired girl could enjoy her victory, she felt strong arms wrapping around her stomach. Behind her, Ann-Sophie said:

"Good job sweaty, but we better go now."

Before Anastasia was able to respond, Ann-Sophie already jumped up and flew away with her.

* * *

The flight did not last long, Ann-Sophie landed (rather ungracefully) on the next rooftop. After they nearly crashed on the roof because she slowed down way to late she let go off Anastasia.

"Yes!" Ann-Sophie cheered "Those harlots got their asses handled to them! Stupid seniors. Enough magic power to melt a house but so no clue about street fights."

Slowly Anastasia turned around, facing Ann-Sophie with a face bare of every emotion.

"What do you want?" she asked all business like.

Ann-Sophie was confused. "What?"

"Cut the act. It is obvious that you want something in return for your help. Why else would you help a witch against your own kind?"

"Oh-ho, you've got me wrong there." Replied Ann-Sophie "I don't part people into species, I part them into types of guys I like and dislike. Let's see" she held up her right hand and started to count wither fingers "There are the innocent and the guilty, the nice one and the pricks, the honest and the liars, the smart and the dumb, the funny and the boring and so on. Those girls back down there" she made a motion towards the alley "were utter bitches who wanted to use you for their entertainment." She smirked "That makes you to the damsel in distress, and because I dislike seeing damsels in distress my interfering made me" she smirked wider and took in a victorious pose "To the princess in shining armor."

Anastasias expression fell and became a mask of total disbelieve.

"You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I am always serious with my reasons to beat up others, damsel." Ann-Sophie answered wickedly.

Because Anastasia didn't know how to respond to that statement, she asked:

"Why do you call me damsel?"

"Yah know, I give as good as every person I know nicknames. You can feel yourself honored, because this one is even meant positive. Or would you prefer me calling you snowman?"

THAT nickname brought back memories to Anastasia, unpleasant memories that filled her with anger. Her Expression hardened and she gave Ann-Sophie a glare of utter fury, while her eyes started to glow in a crimson red, even more intense than the color of her hair.

Ann-Sophie was taken aback by that reaction.

"Ooooookay, I guess better not. Sorry. Bad experiences?"

Through gritted teeth Anastasia answered: "None…..of….your….concern!!"

Before Ann-Sophie was able to respond, both girls were suddenly hit by a lightning. The force of the impacts let them scream in agony and tossed them to the ground, while electricity ran through their bodies.

Completely taken by surprise, they looked to were the lightning's came from. To their surprise, the fairies from the alley were flowing in the air above them, in their transformation outfits, all looking completely fine and very angry. The leader now wore a blue outfit with wings that had the form of waves, Anastasias earlier opponents wore an orange and an white outfit.

"No way!" yelled Ann-Sophie "We've pummeled them just a few minutes ago!"

"Maybe they have a healer" offered Anastasia as explanation.

"Whatever." With that, Ann-Sophie lit up and changed. By now, Anastasia had absolutely no clue what to make out of her. Not only that Ann-Sophie behaved strange and fought her own kind for a witch, Anastasia just could not believe that a fairy would ever have a transformation outfit like THAT. And now that she could get a look on the bare legs and stomach of the fairy, she found her suspicion confirmed. That GIRL had a body like a top athlete.

Ann-Sophie pushed herself up and flew towards the fairies, fists raised. The leader waved her hands, creating circle of water between them and Ann-Sophie.

The bald-headed girl sneered. "If you think that water can…" WUMP! With another wave, the leader had transformed the water into ice, and Ann-Sophie bumped right into it. Blood ran out of her nose. With a snarl, she flow above the circle, only to be hit in the chest from an orange energy beam, fired by the fairy in the orange outfit. With a pant she was sent back to the roof where Anastasia caught her with her pigtails.

Quickly she let her down and wrapped one pigtail around Ann-Sophie's arm. Then she whirled around and ran towards the edge of the rooftop, dragging a struggling Ann-Sophie behind her.

"Let go!!" she demanded "I am so goanna shove my foot up their asses!"

Anastasia ignored her. The leader of the fairies yelled: "Dragonflies, crush them!" and instantly all of them shot beams and blasts after them. Surprisingly, no one hit them, like they only tried to set their asses on fire.

The escaping pair reached the edge of the roof. Suddenly, Anastasia literally jumped at Ann-Sophie, wrapping her arms around her throat and her legs around her hips. Ann-Sophie could just ask: "Hey, what the…" and Anastasia had already touched the roof with the points of her pigtails and pushed them over the edge.

* * *

While falling towards the ground of another alley, Ann-Sophie cursed Anastasia with all words she knew until she remembered that she could fly and used that to stop their fall.

"Why the fuck did you do that!" she demanded to know.

"Because I can't fly," Anastasia replied like it was nothing "now move before they get us."

A green orb flying pass them, hitting the ground and exploding underlined her point. Ann-Sophie cursed and flew as fast as she could, with Anastasia clinging to her, out of the alley and on the street.

"What now?" Ann-Sophie asked.

Anastasia answered: "Follow my instructions, I have a plan. Now fly to the left."

Ann-Sophie obeyed and flew as fast as she could, five meters above the street. Anastasia looked over her shoulder and saw that the other fairies were still chasing them, firing attack after attack after them, but still none off them actually hit them. Then the leader started to throw water balls, the size of basketballs, into the air, a dozen meter above the escaping pair. Anastasia wondered why she was doing that.

Soon she found out, as the water-balls became ice and dropped out of the air, raining down like giant hailstones. On the ground, they shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces.

One ice-ball hit Ann-Sophie on the right shoulder. She hissed in pain and her flying became unsteady for a few seconds before she regained control.

"These sluts are just toying with us!!!" she screamed, outraged and frustrated that she could not fight back. She hated having to flee, but she knew that it was necessary sometimes. Still, it was frustrating.

Anastasia decided not too reply such an obvious statement. Instead, she did something useful. The fairy in the yellow outfit ad come close enough that she could reach her with her pigtails.

Like two vipers, her pigtails shot towards the fairy. Effortlessly, the fairy fired lightings out of both of her palms, hitting both pigtails and flinging them to the side.

Anastasia gritted her teeth. That confirmed it. Their pursuers could easily squash them any time they felt like it. They just decided to have a little fun with them first. Well, wit a little luck that would save them.

She ordered Ann-Sophie to take the left street by the next crossroad. Ann-Sophie did so, but after a few meters the fairy in the orange outfit threw a orange orb at them. The orb hit the ground just a few centimeters behind them, and exploded with a loud boom in a dazzling light. The shockwave caught the pair and tossed them through the air, taking Ann-Sophie the control over the flight. The force parted them. Anastasia bumped on a car. Ann-Sophie fell hard on the street, landing on her right arm and sliding a few meters above the asphalt. Thanks to her outfit that brought her many bruises.

Despite that, she was the first on who stood up. Her nose was still bleeding. She was holding her right arm, who hung stiff on her shoulder and did not look like he could be used any time soon.

With a snarl, she faced the five other fairies, which were hovering just a few meters away, all looking rather pleased with themselves. The one in the white outfit said:

"Now we'll show you what the dragonflies do with filthy witches and worthless traitors."

She fired a little green orb which hit Ann-Sophie's left leg, making it unusable. She fell to her knees while the other fairies already prepared other attacks.

Ann-Sophie let out a scream full of anger, frustration and pain. Her eyes became all black, like two pitch-black holes in her face. Darkness emerged from her entire body, creating a giant ball around her, covering everything that it passed in utter darkness, appearing like a big blot of black ink on a painting.

The dragonflies instantly stooped their attacks and created a shield together, but the blackness stopped a few centimeters in front of them anyway.

Meanwhile Anastasia had also stood up and watched the scene with concern. She did not think that the bald-headed girl could maintain that ball much longer.

Fast she inspected the darkness. It did not look like it would actually do any real damage, the top of a traffic sign showed out of it and did not fall.

Quickly making a decision, she thrust her pigtails in the car tat she had bumped into. She actually lifted the car up and tossed it into the black ball, toward where she expected the fairies to be.

They had dropped their shield in the meantime and inspected the dark ball, as the car flew out of the same ball, exactly to where they hovered. They all reacted by reflex and fired an attack at the car, making her explode. But the car had already been so close to them that this time they were caught by a shockwave and thrown backwards.

Meanwhile, the darkness around Ann-Sophie vanished and she collapsed, breathing heavily.

Anastasia ran to her and helped her up. Again she dragged her with her, while helping her to remain on her feet.

"Come on" she practically begged "just make it to the end of the street."

Ann-Sophie only managed to nod, her face showed exhaustion and pain. Her right arm and left leg couldn't be used. With a hiss through gritted teeth, she pushed herself up from the ground with her right foot and started to fly. Actually flying was the wrong word, she (and Anastasia, who clung to her once again) didn't even leave the ground, Ann-Sophie only managed to bring them forward, dragging them painfully over the Asphalt of the street.

Finally, they reached the end of the street. Ann-Sophie just stopped flying as soon as they reached the pavement in front of a building that looked like a pub.

Anastasia quickly stood up and helped Ann-Sophie to her knees, she didn't look like she could stand without help.

"Good" the pale girl said "now we only have to wait for reinforcements."

Ann-Sophie grunted. "I have no idea what you are talking about, but I hate waiting."

With that, she raised her left hand and created a black rectangle in front of them, covering them and the building behind them.

Anastasias eyes widened. "Are you crazy! That's too much for you. Stop it, it's not necessary anymore."

Ann-Sophie didn't listen. Sweat was running down her face and her entire body trembled. Meanwhile her shield started to shrink slowly through the sun shining brightly on it. But she gritted her teeth and held on.

Then blue, green, orange, yellow and white energy beams and balls came flying through the black rectangle, so many that some of them just had to hit the pair….

* * *

…but all attacks exploded in a short distance of them, held by a violet shining shield that had just appeared in front of them. While Anastasia looked relieved and satisfied, Ann-Sophie was so baffled that she nearly dropped her shield. She looked behind. The sight that she got made her laugh.

Dozens of girls around her age in dark, short outfits came running out of the building behind them, some of them holding up their hands and letting them shine violet, most likely holding up the shield. The building was a pup indeed, a witch-pup. All of them looked surprised about the strange pair, but ready and eager to fight.

One of them stepped forward. She wore black high-hells that were bonded to her legs with thin ribbons, who were wrapped around her legs to her knees. She had a short, skin tight trouser like Anastasia, just in khaki. Her upper body was bare, expect for a strange piece of fabric around her chest, formed in a way that made it appear like two big, black spiders were covering her breasts, while four of their legs touched those of the other between the breast, while the other wrapped around her back and meet at her spine. Her dark-blue hair hung down to her shoulders. Yellow eyes sparkled in the sun while her mouth formed an amused smirk. She moved with a safety that made her appear like a queen.

"Well" she stated amused, but serious at the same time "it does not happen often that a student surprises me or that I see a fairy that looks like she is able to do more than looking cute. Please fill me in." She asked Anastasia, although it sounded more like a demand.

Anastasia wasted no time. "We are chased by five senior fairies. They call themselves dragonflies. One of them might be.."

The blue-haired girl silenced her with a gesture. "I know who they are. And they really deserve a beating."

She turned around to the other witches. Then she ordered in a voice that made clear that she was used to give orders and having them followed: "Sophomores, you continue holding up the shield and drop it at my command. Seniors, up in the air and on my sign. Freshmen, stay on the ground and prepare yourself to show what you have learned about firing bolts."

It happened like she said, some witches helped holding up the shield who still took a lot of hits, some of them flew a few meters up and the rest remained on the ground. The girl that gave the orders jumped and shot upwards, high above even those already in the air, taking in the whole scene. Anastasia remained on Ann-Sophie's side.

"Fairy, drop your shield. Sophomores, do the same after she did." the yellow-eyed girl yelled from above.

Ann-Sophie glanced at Anastasia, who nodded. She dropped the shield.

Now the sight on the street was free and the dragonflies that were not far away from the shield, throwing attacks but instantly stopping that as they caught sight of the witches. Completely surprised, they hesitated a moment to long.

The last attacks exploded on the shield, which was dropped afterwards. The witch high in the air shouted: "Freshmen, fire!" and so the freshmen did, all of them firing bolts. Only a few of them hit the overwhelmed fairies, but there were a lot of freshmen.

The bolts caused the fairies to being tossed around when hit and making it hard to remain in the air. Slowly they started to create shields, but the Witch that gave the orders just shouted: "Betty! Emily!" and one of the seniors fired five big lightings at once, shattering all the shields that were already weakened from the freshmen. Another throw an red orb who exploded in front of the fairies, tossing them at the street.

The leader of the fairies managed to raise her hands and create a fog while desperately shouting: "RETREAT!", but the leading witch only shouted "Therese!" and yet another senior created a strong wind that blew the fog away. The five fairies were already running/flying for it as fast as they could, splitting up. Some of the witches gave chase, but soon the blue-haired witch called them back.

All witches cheered loudly, those in the air returning to the ground, giving high-fives and joking about the fleeing fairies. The witch that coordinated the fight came down also, looking rather pleased. Then she turned her attention to Anastasia and Ann-Sophie. Ann-Sophie had finally collapsed, her fairy-outfit disapeared, she laid on her back, breathing heavily, but smiling that it was over and the snobbish seniors got a beating.

"Alright" the leading witch addressed Anastasia "now I would like to know why you brought a fairy here."

Suddenly, Ann-Sophie felt the looks from dozens of witches on her.

* * *

Next time: How the witches react on Ann-Sophie and new information about the roommates.


	6. Dealing with spiders, roses and kittens

All rights belong to rainbow.

* * *

Everyone was silent. Most of the witches looked like they had just become aware of Ann-Sophie's presence at all, or the fact that she was a fairy. Some of them looked like they didn't know what to make of her, because she did not look like an ordinary fairy and had just been chased by some. Others, like a certain silver-haired girl called Judith, had murder in their eyes. Anastasia remained silent, appearing unbothered, but silently she cursed herself for not having thought about how to explain this. Her plan has only gone to getting help.

Despite of the situation, Ann-Sophie laughed, much to the witches surprise. She was still lying on her back, looking into the sky and only lifted her left forearm and index finger to address the others.

"I guess that I am supposed to be bothered by all of this, but right now I am just to banged up to care about more than being still alive, so please make the important decisions without me, I'll take a nap."

With that, she let her arm fall back down and closed her eyes. Everyone eyed her with disbelieve. Finally, Judith spoke out what everyone was thinking: "Okay, who or what the hell is THAT?"

I wish I'd know, Anastasia thought sarcastically. "As far as I can say, she is a fairy who dislikes fairies. I've met her today as the seniors from before had me cornered. Not only did she say that she doesn't like the way Alfea looks and appreciates violence, she also attacked the other fairies to help me, out of reasons I don't know yet."

She turned to the witch that gave the orders during the fight. "Despite of her help, it was still five against two, so I decided to get help. I really don't think that this fairy will mean any trouble, she doesn't behaves like an ordinary fairy and does not seem to have problems with witches. Besides, it's not like she could just look for this pup in a map."

"Oh, come on" Judith interrupted "this has fairy-scheme written all over it. Do you think it's a coincidence that this bum shows up just when you are in trouble? I am sure that was all a setup so that this maggot" she gestured towards Ann-Sophie, who seemed to be unbothered by the insults "could earn your trust, so that the fairies would get a spy."

Anastasia thought about that, then she replied. "Possible, but I don't think so. I've seen the looks that the other fairies gave her. That was scorn. They despise her."

Judith was far from convinced. "So? Then maybe she is a Freak under fairies and the seniors from before dislike her for that, but they could have just forced her to help them, and she accepted to earn herself some respect. Slimy fellow traveler."

Anastasia shook her head. "Sorry, but that was all just a bit to real to be a setup. While the seniors looked at her with scorn, I could see real hate in her eyes. They beat her up very badly, and she doesn't seem to be the type of girl that allows others to do that to her."

Once again, she turned to the leading witch. "Still, I think that she has something planned, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the seniors."

The leading witch rested her hand on her chin and thought about that. Before she said anything, a heated Judith yelled: "Really, this is naïve! You can't trust a pixie to…"

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?!?"

Everybody whirled around to Ann-Sophie who had shouted the question. She fought herself back on her feet. She could barley hold her stand because her left leg was still rather weak and brought her pain, as did her right arm. Despite of that and to everyone's surprise she stumbled towards Judith.

"Listen, silver slut" she addressed the puzzled freshmen "I don't care what you think to know about me, but if you compare me one more time to one of that tiny retards I'll rip you a new one!"

First, everyone was too perplexed to answer. Actually fairies were not bothered if others referred to them as pixies because most fairies liked them and they did have a little resemblance. Obviously that wasn't the case with that fairy. And then there was her unordinary foul mouth.

"Just what the hell are you?" Another witch asked.

Ann-Sophie was still fixing her eyes on Judith. She answered: "A banged up, pissed girl who wants to kick silver sluts ass."

That brought Judith back into the conversation. "Oh, should I feel scared now? You pathetic weakling" she ignored Ann-Sophie's obvious muscular body "look like you'd be flat by the next strong breeze."

Ann-Sophie gritted her teeth. "Give me half an hour to regain my strength, then I'll show you who the pathetic one is. Or" she added scornfully "are you afraid to face me when I am not already weakened?"

Judith eyes blazed. "I dare you bitch to call me a coward one more time, and I will tear……"

She was interrupted as the leading witch ordered "Silence!" with a chilly voice and both heads of the arguing girls rocked in her direction. Judith sucked her teeth but backed away. Ann-Sophie glared daggers at the interrupter.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't care, but if you think you can order me around, then…."

Before she could finish what would most likely have become an insult, Anastasia reacted. Her right pigtail shot forward and covered Ann-Sophie's mouth while her left wrapped around her stomach and pulled her away from the blue-haired witch, next to her.

The bald-headed fairy struggled against the iron grip of the red hair and glared angrily at Anastasia, who gave her a hard, both demanding and pleading look. Her captive scolded, but stopped struggling and tried to pretend that the whole situation would not bother her at all.

Most witches had to suppress laughter, Judith just grinned satisfied. The leading witch was amused, but controlled. She stated:

"As far as I am concerned, this fairy des not appear to mean us any harm, so for the moment, nobody touches her." Anastasia flinched on that, but nobody noticed. The leading witch addressed Anastasia directly. "Still, I'd like you to bring her away before she and Judith get into a physical fight. I trust you with her."

"Mhmpf!" Ann-Sophie said in attempt to say that she didn't like others to decide for her, but Anastasia was still holding her tightly. Her answer was:

"As you say. But before I go, does anyone know where my roommate is?" she asked the other witches. One of them answered:

"She left shortly after you. Stormed out of the door and flew away as fast as she could. She seemed to be really angry."

"Thanks." Was all that Anastasia had to say to that. Then she turned to the left and walked away from the pub, dragging a rather pissed Ann-Sophie behind her. She was very angry about being bonded, but because of her condition she decided to let it be for the moment. The other witches returned into the pub.

At the end of the street, Anastasia stopped and faced her captive.

"Can I trust you not to attack me when I let you go?"

Ann-Sophie nodded immediately. Anastasia released her.

"Fuck!" spat Ann-Sophie "That was the greatest humiliation of my life! You should better have some good reasons for what you did, and better come up with them FAST!"

Anastasia stayed calm and crossed her arms while explaining:

"It was necessary. If I wouldn't have held you back, Jeanette would have crushed you, or let you've been crushed."

Ann-Sophie stared at her. "And who the hell is Jeanette? The silver slut? No, her name was Judith. Oh don't tell me, it was Miss "I have the right to order everyone around", right? God, I hate bossy people."

Anastasias expression became serious and she got a step closer.

"Listen, and listen carefully. Whatever you think you can get from me as repayment for helping me" Ann-Sophie wanted to interrupt but Anastasia just continued talking "I will repay you right now. Jeanette is no one you want to mess with. Most people also call her the Spider-Queen. She is a senior and except of Miss Griffin, no one has as much influence and power as she has in Cloud tower."

Because Ann-Sophie didn't appear impressed or frightened in the slightest, she continued: "You should not take this lightly. She is smart and manipulative. She uses other people like puppets. And worse, she seems to have taken interest in you. Remember that she said that nobody shall touch you? That was the declaration that she thinks that you have the potential to be useful for her. But if you lose that status for her, she'll just have to wave and dozens of other witches who are in her debt or that she controls in other ways will stand ready to destroy you. So whatever you do in the future, do NOT under any circumstances interact with the Spider-Queen and more important, do NOT agree to anything she says and do Not make her angry if you can avoid it. Got it?"

She eyed the bald-headed fairy expectant. After a few moments of silence Ann-Sophie replied: "Okay. Apology accepted."

Anastasia was confused. "Come again?"

"Well, that's what it was al about" Ann-Sophie pointed out like it was obvious "You explained why you had me humiliated in front of silver slut, Spider-missy and all the other witches. And while I hate others to decide what's best for me, I appreciate your concern for me. So as I said, apology accepted, just don't make such a big fuss about Spider-missy."

Anastasias eyes nearly pooped out of her face. "WHAT!? Did you listen to anything I said?! You are in trouble and I have only helped you out of it because I owed you for helping me!"

Now Ann-Sophie became a bit annoyed. "Please, would you skip this whole debt-shit? I helped you because I enjoy brawling with people like those fireflies. And maybe because you are a somehow likeable person. So stop talking about repayment, I don't expect any, I had enough fun today. And really, if a girl with a name that sounds like it is out of a B-Movie tries to use me because I am interesting, then that's my problem, and I deal with it. So chill."

While Ann-Sophie thought she made her point clear with that, Anastasia was now even more convinced that she had something planned and was playing the ignorant fool. So she decided to play along. Whatever game the fairy was playing, she would not succeed.

"Okay, if you decide to ignore the danger that being the object of interest of people like Jeanette brings, then that's your business. Can we get going then?"

"Depends on where you want to go."

"To the next bus station so you can go back to Alfea. Or do you know where exactly in Magix you are."

Ann-Sophie shook her head. "No, this is my first day in town. By the way, as the fireflies were chasing us, why didn't anyone interfere or call the police? In my realm, a scene like this would have resulted in a bunch of gliders loaded with well armored and heavily armed special-unit's-policemen."

"Then I am right to assume that there aren't so many magic-gifted people in you r realm?" the redhead asked.

"No, it's more about industry. Perhaps 25% of the population has magic powers, including me." She didn't sound so enthusiastic about that and Anastasia noticed her expression darken, but decided not to ask about it now. She explained:

"See, this is Magix, the centre of the magical dimension. Everybody on the planet has magic powers. That causes circumstances that are different from other, none-magical societies. And other laws also. And now look at it like this: There are three schools around the city, and two of them are full of young girls full of magical energy, eager to learn more about them and try them out. And both groups hate/distrust the other. Of course that causes magical fights now and then. So the rule is, as long as nobody gets hurt or killed in any brawls between witches and fairies, nobody will press charges. And there is also no problem with the destruction of public buildings when as good as anyone can repair that by just waving his hand."

Now Ann-Sophie was impressed. "Wow. Wish we had that system at home. Otherwise, if there wouldn't be the danger to being thrown into jail, street fights would be less fun."

Anastasia frowned. "You surely are an odd fairy."

Ann-Sophie twinkled. "Never said I wasn't. And I like it that way."

Shaking her head, Anastasia motioned Ann-Sophie to follow and they went towards the next bus station. On the way, Anastasia thought about her companion and tried to come to a conclusion about what to make of her and what she could be up to. But she couldn't think of any. The bald-headed fairy was a mystery for her.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Ann-Sophie asked her: "What was that actually about your roommate back at the pub?"

Anastasia sighed. "To make a long story sort, my roommate persuaded me to accompany her to the pub because she thought that I lacked social skills. At the pub, she got the image that I can't "open up and relax", like she explained it. We got in an argument about the uselessness of what she calls "hanging out" and she got really angry during it."

She stopped. Lea had looked a bit TOO angry for her, almost like she wanted to rip out her hear. She thought about the library at Cloud tower where every witch had a book about her life. In the time she spent at Cloud Tower, she had gone through most of them with Miss Griffin's personal permission, especially through those of the seniors to be prepared for people like Jeanette. However, she decided not to read anything about her roommate, in order to keep their relationship on a neutral ground. Now, thinking about the almost animalistic fury she had seen in Leas eyes, she thought that maybe she should have gotten at least a little information.

Felling Ann-Sophie's expectant eyes on her, she continued: "So I decided to leave before things got out of hand. On my way back the dragonflies caught me, and then you came. You know the rest."

Ann-Sophie had nothing to reply, so they just continued walking.

After five minutes, they arrived at the bus station.

"Alright" Ann-Sophie said "I think I'll find my own way now. Thanks for the nice day, damsel."

"Could you stop calling me that?" Anastasia was a little irritated. "My name is Anastasia."

"Suits you, mine is Ann-Sophie. But you are allowed to call me princess." She said with a wide grin, showing white teeth.

Anastasia sighed. "Why do you have to give everyone nicknames? They are stupid and senseless."

"That I know" was Ann-Sophie's reply "and that's why I do it. It's stupid, but it's fun."

Anastasia just shook her head and turned to leave, but Ann-Sophie caught her shoulder. "Wait. When I said I had a nice day, I meant it. I don't care if you think I am crazy, but I think we should again, preferable the same way as today, but not necessarily. So would you give me your number?"

Anastasias eyes widened, but because she had turned Ann-Sophie didn't caught that. Damn, the redhead thought, why can't I read that girl? Why does she always surprise me again? She really disliked that the fairy was such a puzzle to her, but that made her more eager to find out what she was really up to. So she told Ann-Sophie her number. And saw with utter confusion how Ann-Sophie dug her nail in a shortly healed bruise on her shoulder and wrote the number with blood on her trouser.

"What? Don't worry, I am not a psycho, this is the first time I write something this way. But look, I don't have a pen, the bruise will heal again, my arm is completely numb and the pant is ruined anyway. So not a big sacrifice for being able to call you."

Again shaking her head, Anastasia left before the fairy confused her even more.

* * *

Hours later, Ann-Sophie was relived to be back in her dorm at last. When she had passed Alfeas gates with ripped clothes, a sore leg, an arm she could not move and lots of bruises, an angry Griselda had immediately wanted an explanation. She said that she tripped, and it was clear that Griselda knew that she lied, but honestly, she didn't care. Then she was sent to the infirmity, where the nurse had taken care of everything, so now her body was fine again. After that, she was called to the headmistress office (again) and gave the same lame excuse like before. As miss-what-exactly-was-he-name-again-headmistress didn't let the issue fall, she snapped that she should mind her own damn business, and that she didn't have to justify what she did in her free time outside of the school grounds. For her "inappropriate behavior" she got a scolding and detention. However, they let the issue fall for now, so she suspected that the seniors had also been quiet about it, what was no surprise, since it had ended humiliating for them.

Smiling about the memory of how the witches had dealt with them, she opened the door to her room. After she closed the door behind her, she said hello to Esther who was sitting in a chair in front of the window. As Esther didn't reply, she repeated herself, this time louder. Still no response.

Slowly she started to worry, stepping to Esther's side, she noticed that her roommate barley moved. Her chest was still going up and down, so she was breathing, but that was all. She didn't even blink or noticed Ann-Sophie as she looked her directly in the eyes. What made Ann-Sophie even more worried was the little trace of water running down Esther's cheek, a trace most likely left from a tear.

A bit scared, Ann-Sophie started to shake Esther. That worked, the green-haired girl gasped shocked and she almost shrieked, but her eyes caught sight of Ann-Sophie worried face and she calmed down.

"Oh, hi Ann-Sophie. Is something wrong?"

Ann-Sophie let her go and eyed her suspiciously. "Actually I thought you could answer me that. When I came in a few seconds ago, you were sitting here like a statue and didn't notice me."

"Really?" Esther asked, confused. "What time is it?"

Ann-Sophie looked out of the window. "Already dawning. Why?"

Esther looked embarrassed. "Oh, sorry, that's a bad habit of me. Sometimes I lose myself in thoughts and don't notice the time passing by, or anything else. I might have sat here for hours."

Now Ann-Sophie was concerned. "And are you alright? I don't want to press anything, but I think you have been crying. Were you?"

Esther looked down, appearing ashamed. Instead of an answer, she gave her roommate a question, still looking at her knees. "Say, Ann-Sophie, do you think you are my friend?" she almost whispered.

"Äh…" Ann-Sophie was taken aback "well, we've been sharing the same room for more than a day and I didn't yell at you once, expect of the time I thought you were some other. And that is very rare for me. Apart from that, you are one of the four persons in this school I can actually stand, and I haven't found the other three yet. While I admit that I am a aggressive and loud person, I think your shyness is a bit cute. So yes, I'd say I am your friend."

Esther still didn't look up. "Would you still be my friend if you knew something unpleasant about me?"

Recognizing the fear in Esther's voice, Ann-Sophie kneeled down in front of her, grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look into her eyes.

"Why are you saying that? Did someone Suggest that I wouldn't or say something hurtful to you? If yes, tell me who, and I will…"

"NO!" Esther shouted frightened. "Nobody said anything to me. It's just…" she wanted to look away again, but Ann-Sophie didn't let her. Sighing, she continued. "I followed you r advise, you know?, about exploring the school and meeting others. I didn't really talk with anyone, but…. Remember our lesson with Professor Palladium? Where we had to transform?" Ann-Sophie nodded. "Then you must remember the unusual condition of my transformation."

"Your lack of wings." Ann-Sophie suggested and Esther nodded. "And others made nasty comments about that."

"No. Okay, a few, but really just a few. They said things like "Freak", "Witch" and "unnatural". But really, just a few. And that's not what's bothering me. What's really bothering me is the majority who is whispering things like "accident", "maybe to small", "pitiful", "So sad", and "sorry"." She started sobbing and tears ran down her face. "They pity me, but I don't want their pity. I don't want them to recognize me. Or asking good-meant questions about what happened to me. Really, why can't they just ignore me? Just let me be?" She wiped her tears away and stared into Ann-Sophie's concerned eyes. "Once I had a friend, but when I told her why I have no wings, she changed. She never treated me like before, she always behaved like I was out of glass, she didn't joked with me anymore, and she always had this pitying, comforting look on her face when she was watching me. She treated me like I had become a complete new person. And she wasn't the person I called a friend anymore. Only because she felt sorry for me." Her tone became pleading. "So please, please don't you ask what happened to my wings, please don't I don't know if I could stand losing another friend cause of them. I am not sure if I want to stand it."

While looking into Esther's hurt face, Ann-Sophie didn't know what to say. She hadn't really thought about Esther's lack of wings, because she hadn't really cared. Because she couldn't' really think of any word to comfort Esther or to ease her fear, she just pulled her into a strong hug and petted her back. Esther clung to the hug like a drowning and cried silently into her shoulder.

They remained long in that position, none of them really moving. As the sun sunk behind the horizon, Ann-Sophie felt Esther's grip weaken. She noticed that she had fallen asleep. Carefully, she picked the sleeping girl up bridal-style and carried her to her bed, laid her down and covered her with her blanket. She looked down at the green-haired girl. While sleeping she looked all peaceful and safe, nothing remembered on the weeping girl she had held before. With a smile, Ann-Sophie made herself ready for bed.

* * *

Back at Cloud tower, Anastasia closed the door to her room behind her. Still facing the door, she asked: "Lea, are you here?"

As an answer, she got an animalistic growl.

Anastasia tensed and turned around slowly. And nearly stopped breathing at what she saw.

On Leas bed stood a big Jaguar. It's claws were ripping through the blanket on the bed and its opened mouth showed big, sharp fangs. Its blond fur pointed upwards and a long tail whipped left and right. Yellow cat eyes were fixing every single of Anastasias movements.

One of said movements included slowly reaching for the doorknob. But before the redhead could open the door, the jaguar got of the bed and leapt at her. Reacting out of instinct, Anastasia let her pigtails grow and wrapped them around the wrists of the claws that pointed at her throat. The hind legs of the cat touched the ground and now, technically standing on two feet, while her other legs were held by Anastasias pigtails, the Jaguar tried to bite of Anastasias head. Its fangs opened and closed centimeters in front of Anastasias face, who could barley held the cat away. Desperate, she raised her arms and touched the Jaguars stomach, using her power to heat its blood. The cat let out a furious roar and tried to back away. Now that it didn't' fight back to Anastasias attempt to press it away, it was easy for the girl to let her hair toss the big cat about five meters through the air.

Effortlessly, the Jaguar landed on its paws and hissed. Instantly it charged towards Anastasia again, but her pigtails lashed out and smacked the cats face like two whips. The animal howled and stopped its attack, slowly backing away, cat-eyes fixed on Anastasia, who was still standing in front of the door, although fixing her opponent, looking determined, her pigtails raised like two cobras ready to attack.

While the cat backed further away Anastasia thought about what all this could mean. She really didn't know anyone who would be angry enough at her to place a Jaguar in her room, or would be able to do that. Maybe it was meant for Lea…. Oh shit, Lea had to be here before her, so the Jaguar must have gotten her already. But no, there were no remains of a fight in the room when she came in. Still, the cat had been on Leas bed…. Then she noticed something odd. Somewhere she had already seen the shade of the jaguar's fur. Of course, that was the color of Leas hair. Could that mean….

The cat tried another tactic as it jumped to the side, landing on the next wall and sinking all four claws into it. Then it actually ran along the wall towards Anastasias location. Her right pigtail shot forward to stab the cat, but the jaguar avoided the attack by jumping of the wall at Anastasia. Quickly, she let her left pigtail move up and grab the railway of the second floor, then pulling her upwards, so the jaguar's claws only struck air. Fast, Anastasia climbed above the railway, while thinking:

"Okay, if this cat is Lea, that would explain her fury today. Given her aggressive behavior right now, I guess she is not herself right now. Fast, what do I know about bringing transformed people back to their senses…."

Her thought were interrupted when the cat/Lea landed just a few meters away from her on the second floor after just jumping up.

In a mere second, Anastasia decided that she had no time to grasp memories and that she would try to bring Lea back to her senses through making the whole scenery less serious. Before the cat could move, Anastasias right pigtail had smacked its nose, while her left reached out to her drawing-equipment. Roaring in pain and anger, the cat charged forward, but Anastasias right pigtail managed to get a hold on its tail and pulled her back, causing a furious hiss. Her left pigtail had in the meantime taken a color bucket and stomped a hole into it with its tip. Now she help the color bucket right in front of the cats face and pressed it together, causing a stream of green color to spray into the cats face.

If it wouldn't have been for the deadly claws, fangs and hair, the whole scene might have been amusing. And that seemed to reach even the cat's mind, whose body first stiffened, then it began to shake, its mouth escaping something like a cat's form of laughter. Then, the jaguar's legs collapsed, causing it to land on its stomach.

Anastasia let go of the cat's tail, her pigtails growing back to their original size. Wary, she watched how the jaguars body started to change, its tail growing back, the legs bones changing position, the claws and the fur growing back and the face losing its cat features. After a moment, were once laid a big cat now Lea was laying.

"Uh, the hell…" she mumbled with a sleepy voice. When she caught sight of Anastasia, she asked: "Huh, do you know for any chance why I am lying on the floor like this….." That was the moment she noticed the claw marks on the floor next to her. Instantly, she was completely awake and stood up, examine the room and noticed the remains of the fight. Lowering her head and resting her fingers on her forehead, she cursed: "Shit! Please don't tell me that it happened again.

"If _it_ means you changing into a jaguar and trying to kill me" Anastasias stated calm "then I have to disappoint you."

Lea groaned. "Oh damn! I didn't hurt anyone, did I?" Anastasia shook her head. "Oh, that's a relief. Guess I have to pay for the claw marks in the floor and the wall. No idea how I shall afford that."

"Don't worry" Anastasia said, pointing on the floor where the claw marks were disappearing before leas astonished eyes "Cloud tower is actually some kind of a living organism, somehow like a plant. The scratches of your claws are like the sting of a tiny needle for a human for it."

Lea rolled her eyes. "Boy, this place becomes more freaky every day. Well, I suppose I owe you an explanation?" Anastasia nodded. "Can we sit down for this?"

Anastasia just walked over to the next table, sat down and motioned Lea to do the same. So Lea did.

"Let me start from the beginning." Lea started "You know, my father is a mercenary of some sort, legally in some parts of the galaxy. One time, on a mission who lasted for like a year, on a rather archaic planet, he had some sort of affair with a native woman. She didn't tell him that she got pregnant, they sort of broke up shortly after it happened, but after the eight month, he noticed it and wanted to have a right to decide about the kid. The society of the planet, however, denied him his right, as a stranger. So he decided the best way to have his right would be to steal the baby shortly after its birth and leave the realm, and so he did" She smirked ironically "I guess you can guess that the baby was me. But he never told me about my heritage, when I asked about my mother he always only said that she was gone, so I thought she died long ago. For him she must have, because he never spoke about her or tried to get information's about her realm. Would be better if he had, because four month ago, it became urgent."

She paused and looked uncomfortable. Anastasia asked:

"So your mother was a witch, but your father didn't know. And four month ago, your powers activated themselves, you transformed and hurt someone, right?"

Lea looked ashamed. "Yes. It happened while father and I were in an elevator. Apparently, my cat-side has problems with small, narrow rooms. First, my vision got red and the next ting I remember is waking up in a hospital with my father sitting next to my bed, his body marked with ugly scratches. He said that I transformed and attacked him, so he had to strangle me unconscious. After I became unconscious, I changed back. As a matter of fact, things couldn't go on as they did. Later I experimented with my power. I can transform in a jaguar on free will and than control my thoughts, but under special circumstances, my cat-side just takes over."

She eyed Anastasia apologetic. "That is why I became so angry at you in the pub. You see, I have always been a bit energetic, but since the manifestation of my powers, I am kind of hyper from time to time to move. I need to be on the fresh air and do some exhausting things like just running for hours or climb high hills. Nothing against this room, but really, I can't stand being in her every day. So when we were at the pub and you showed no signs of having fun or intention on going out again anytime soon, I, well, felt betrayed because I thought you might somehow deny me time outside. I think it was best that you left, but after you were gone, I was still angry and decided to go away before I transformed in the middle of a crowd. I made it to here, but I guess being back into a room didn't really made my cat-side happy. Gladly you could prevent any further damage."

"If your control about you "cat-side", as you call it, is that limited, why didn't you tell any of the teacher-staff about it?"

"Well" Lea answered embarrassed "I haven't had a change to talk to Miss Griffin yet and I just didn't know how to tell any of the teachers we had today "By the way, sometimes I transform into an oversized kitten and try to kill people, could you help me?". I hoped that I could avoid any unpleasant situation until I either had a change to talk to the headmistress or we would have a class that is about such issues. Mainly, I think I was running away from my problem, because I really wish I didn't have to deal with it."

" No reason to worry" Anastasia assured her "tomorrow we have transformation class, and believe me, you are not the only person with that kind of problem, we will find a solution. And, you might allow the question, is your transforming into a jaguar the reason why you keep your hair short?"

Lea sighed. "Indeed. One of the reasons my father was able to defeat me when I first transformed was, aside from his battle-experience, that I had long hair in that time, and as a jaguar, that caused me to trip about my own fur. Man, aside from that, being a blond jaguar is just ridiculous!" Anastasia didn't reply to that, so Lea continued. "By the way, I am surprised how calm you take it to have a potential jungle-cat sleeping in the same room as you do. I mean, doesn't it bother you at all that just minutes ago I tried to literally eat you alive?"

Anastasia shrugged and said that after two month in Cloud tower there was not much that bothered her. Once again, Lea suspected that her roommate didn't tell her the whole truth, but she shrugged it of, it was not like she had been completely honest about everything from the beginning. So she asked Anastasia about her day.

"Oh, after I left the pub I got into a violent encounter with five senior fairies, and oddly a freshman fairy helped me out."

Lea arched her eyebrows. "Okay, I just have to know that story."

* * *

Somehow I can't help but have the feeling that I messed up the dialogs, please tell me if I did.

Next time: Balls at Alfea have always been special, and this time will be no different.

Please review.


	7. Belle of the ball

**All rights of the Winx Club universe belong to rainbow and Iginio Straffi, I only owe my own characters.**

**A/N: Lame excuse. You know, if English is not your mother language, inviting and describing dresses are a bitch, well, it is for me. But because I didn't wanted to keep you waiting for another week only because the description of two dresses is missing, I'd like to ask you to forgive me that lack and use your own imagination what would fit the two. As soon as I'll have an inspiration, I will add the descriptions and delete this crap.**

**Whooooo, that was a piece of work. Glad it's finished finally. Many scenes didn't worked out the way I intended them to, but hey, its finished and the main idea remains. Enjoy.**

* * *

„I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" Ann-Sophie repeated for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes while angrily marching up and down in her room, wearing her _**My-anger-management-class pisses me off**_ T-shirt. Esther, sitting in a chair next to the window, finally brought herself to ask: "Eh, Ann-Sophie" the head of her angry roommate shot into her direction and Ann-Sophie could barely stop herself from snapping "what are you actually so mad about?"

"About that shitty announcement from before." Ann-Sophie grunted. As she saw the puzzlement on Esther's face, she explained further: "You know, that there will be a ball tonight and that we have the day of to prepare for or help with it."

Esther was still confused. Sure, she herself would have preferred to not have the day of, free time always left her with to much time with nothing to do than thinking about unpleasant things. During classes, she had something to do at least. But she had suspected that a girl like Ann-Sophie would be happy about a free day. "And that is bad how?"

Ann-Sophie rolled her eyes. "Cant you see? They pull this shit at our second day of school, giving us the day of so we can get sure to look best when hundreds of wannabe heroes are going to storm the school grounds. Second day of school, lots of boys, big time to prepare. Do you understand?"

Still completely perplexed, Esther shook her head no. Ann-Sophie slapped her forehead.

"Oh, come on, it is obvious! This ball is in reality a big matchmaking! They throw us and these wannabes in one big hall, dressed in stupid dresses and tight uniforms, surrounded with food and romantic music, expecting us to dance, so they can hope we'll all get spliced quickly. This is a damn conspiracy to turn us all into housewives! I already had my suspicious after the first class in mannerisms, but now I am sure. I tell you, tomorrow we'll have to learn how to cook!"

Esther's jaw almost hit the floor. Although she would never dare to say that out loud, this rant was the greatest crap she had ever heard. How could a school that taught girls to use powers that were strong enough to destroy a battle-tank be supposed to make the same girls housewives?! Especially if they learnt this stuff in order to protect their realms, making them warriors in a similar way to the red-fountain boys.

She couldn't help it. She really couldn't help it. While Ann-Sophie continued to march up and down, ranting about the ball, Esther felt something dwelling up inside of her that she hadn't felt for a long time. Chuckling. When Ann-Sophie heard that, she looked over to her with a sour expression and asked: "What? This is not funny, this is serious."

THAT broke the wall. Helplessly, Esther erupted into burst of laughter, holding her stomach. She was laughing so hard that breathing became hard, but she didn't care. After falling down from her chair, she continued laughing while rolling on the floor.

After likely three minutes she had finally calmed down a bit. Still with a wide grin on her face, she looked up to Ann-Sophie, who was standing just a meter away from her, arms crossed and definetly irritated. At another moment, the sight of Ann-Sophie in a bad mood and her being the cause might have scarred Esther, but after the nonsense that had spilled from her mouth before, Esther just could not take her roommate seriously at the moment.

"So you are not buying it?" Ann-Sophie said, it being more a statement than a question.

Esther replied through shaking her head, she didn't think that she'd be able to speak without having another outburst.

Ann-Sophie threw her arms in the air helplessly. "Alright, so it was nonsense, okay? You have looked through it and destroyed my plan of having an excuse for hating this ball that is not the real reason. Are you happy now?"

"Eh…" Esther had no idea how to answer that, but her blue-eyed roommate didn't give her the chance to anyway.

"But you being happy about that is not the point. It really isn't. Do you want to now what the real point is?" Ann-Sophie's voice had become heated, like she felt being set under pressure from Esther.

Actually, Esther did not want to know what the point was, but she didn't think that she had much to say in that case. So when Ann-Sophie continued talking without letting her answer again, she just stood up and sat down again.

"The point is" The bald headed girl explained furiously "that this ball is going to present everything that I hate about this place. A lot of pink, stupid, expensive dresses, snobbish bitches, all covered in self-righteous goody-goody style and, hell, even plus a bunch of wannabe heroes with a big ego. Hell and that's not the worst. Look, you understand me, don't you?" she asked Esther in a tone that demanded a yes.

By now, Esther didn't understand her roommate at all, even less than ordinary. But before she could answer with _in some ways, I guess, _Ann-Sophie had already went on:

"And because you do, you now that I know that you know that I know(1) that I am an outcast here. And that I have no problem with it. That I like it that way." Now it sounded suspiciously like a reaffirmation "It doesn't bother me at all, I am just myself, and I have no problems with no one else like me being in this fashion-hell. But, damn, at least I don't tell the people in this place how much they disgust me, except they say that to me first. And now this fucking ball will rub it all under my nose again. If I don't come to it, people will talk about it and complain about me not trying to fit in. If I come, they'll complain about me being there because I don't fit in. I don't have a stupid dress, I can't dance, I dislike the type of music that is going to be played and I am surely NOT interested in having to deal with those with an Y-chromosome punished fools who think that they are stronger than me only because I don't have an empty chromosome! So, THAT'S my fucking point!"

By now, she looked really heated and was taking deep breaths to remain calm.

"Well, at least yo won't be the only one who is not going to enjoy the night." Esther mumbled, so quiet thet Ann-Sophie didn't hear her. Really, sometimes An-Sophie could be so insensible, Esther thought. Complaining and yelling like she was the only one with problems, or problems being worth to let others having part in them. Damn, she herself could very well do without the ball. First, she disled being about so many strangers as would be there. Second, she didn't wanted to dress up and gain attention, that was one of the things she disliked most about her transformation outfit. It just screamed "Unordinary" and made others ask questions.

And now, Ann-Sophie was complaining about going to a festival with people that annoyed her while she was going to a festival with people that scared her!

Her thoughts were interrupted by Ann-Sophie asking: "So, would you have by any chance an idea how I could avoid the evening?" The question at itself was rude, but Esther suspected that her bald headed roommate didn't have the knowledge about being polite.

Then it hit her. Did Ann-Sophie just say the EVENING?!

"Did you just say EVENING?" she asked.

Now it was Ann-Sophie's turn to be confused. "Eh, yes, of course. The ball was announced for nine, and as far as I know it gets dark by eight.

Relief washed over Esther in waves and she collapsed in her chair. Even a little tear of joy came running down her cheek and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Whoa whoa, what is that all about know?" a surprised Ann-Sophie wanted to know. Esther looked up to her, wearing a happy smile in her face. She explained:

"My powers make me fall asleep as soon as the sun sat down and nearly impossible to wake up. So know I have an acceptable excuse for not having to go."

Ann-Sophie eyed her. That would explain why Esther never made any noises in her sleep and had always already been awake when the sun had already risen. "You mean, your power being about roses makes you, how to say that, well, only "bloom" by day?" Esther nodded. "Damn, that's so unfair. Wait, you didn't want to go to the ball either? If you are afraid of wannabes in tight trousers hitting on you, if they do so, just kick them in the nuts."

Esther shook her head on that, her face darken a bit. "I am not afraid of man. I am afraid of humans."

Okay. Now Ann-Sophie really didn't know how to respond to that, so there was an embarrassing silence.

Finally, Esther decided to break the silence, for her being in such a good mood. "Well, would there be any way for you to make the ball more attractive for you? Is there anything that is fun for you that you could possibly unite with the ball?"

Ann-Sophie snorted in a very un-lady-like manner. "Nah, dressing stupid and whirling around the floor with a male has nothing to do with the stuff I do in my free time. What I would enjoy would be something like the stuff yesterday, a little pummeling with snobs, back on back with a cute…." She stopped in her tracks. Esther could see it working behind her eyes.

"YES!!!! THAT IS IT!!! ESTHER, YOU ARE A GENIUS!!!!! Could I borrow your handy?"

Esther didn't understand anything anymore. A few moments before, her roommate was pissed about anything, and now she was almost glowing with joy. It took her a moment to reply: "Eh, sorry, I don't have one."

Still full of glee, Ann-Sophie stormed out of the room, yelling: "Later, I have to find a phone!" Esther just stared perplexed.

* * *

In the main hall of Cloud tower, Lea and Anastasia were eating lunch with the rest of the students. Lea smirked. Even eating was some sort of training in this school. They all got their food on the floor of the hall, together with a number that decided on which platform they were supposed to sit. Because the hall was really high, most platforms might take all of the lunchtime to reach by using the stairs. That's why they were forced to fly to the platforms, with their food in the hands and trying not to spill anything. Leas kind of flying, which meant falling in other directions than down, didn't make that easy, but she wasn't the only one with problems, the floor was full with little blots. Thanks to magic, they were easy to get rid of.

First, Lea had been concerned about Anastasia not being able to make it in time, because she couldn't fly, but she didn't have to worry. Holding her plate in both hands, the ivory-colored girl stretched one of her pigtails and used it as a tentacle, grabbing the stairs fifteen meters above, pulling herself up, grabbing the next stairs with her other pigtail and like that climbing all the way up, not spilling anything. She even reached the platform before Lea, because Lea had problems finding the right one with her speed.

Now, while they were eating, Lea asked Anastasia. "Could you explain me how this announcement from Miss Griffin works? With us being not invited to Alfeas ball and coming up with something to sabotage it? I mean, would the school not get in trouble with encouraging its students to something like this?"

Anastasia shrugged. "How about I give you the background of everything and you try to figure it out by yourself?"

Lea nodded. Anastasia started. "See, long ago, shortly after the three schools were founded, the headmistress of Alfea of that time had the idea of an event to bring all the three schools together and create strong bonds of friendship and unity. Not surprisingly, that didn't work out, there was just to much tension between fairies and witches that erupted in magical fights. A solution had to be found, at after long negations it was decided to ban Cloud tower from the festival, because Red-Fountain and Alfea were closer than Red fountain and Cloud tower, the event took place at Alfea and Cloud tower was okay with taking care of itself. Still, many witches were angry about it. And soon, some witches decided to get a little revenge and sabotaged the event. I was clear that witches were responsible, but nothing could be proven, aside from witches being responsible, but not who. So others did it again." She paused. "And now, what do you think how the story goes on?"

Lea thought about that. "Hmm, considering the situation as it is now, I'd guess that the party-crashing has become some sort of custom. Then maybe not only our headmistress is okay with it, but also the leaders of the other schools. Wait, I think I've got it. Could it be that the other two schools are okay with us witches trying to crash their parties because they see it as training in fighting witches?"

Anastasia nodded approvingly. "Exactly. It appeared the so called "victims" had fun fighting of the spells that were supposed to crash the events. So the Schools have made an agreement. Miss Griffin encourages the students to think of something, so that they can get some field-experience or just develop ideas, but she is the one who takes a look on all the plans and decides which one is the best. So she might allow causing a frog-plague, but she would not allow a death-spell. As long as nobody gets hurt and each side has their fun/experience, everything is fine."

Lea just wanted to ask if Anastasia wanted to take part in the event, as suddenly a "beep beep" was heard. First nobody of the two reacted, until Lea said: "Anastasia, I think that is coming from you."

"What? OH!" Hectic, she reached for her pocket. She might have a handy, but until know, she had never used it to call anyone, she didn't now who she could, and nobody had ever called her. So who could it be?

She picked up. "Hello? Yes, that's me. And you are?" Pause. "Of course I remember you."

Now silence followed. Apparently, the one on the other end of the line had much to say. Lea noted that Anastasias face hold absolutely no expression, betraying no emotion while she was listening. Even when she interrupted the caller, her face didn't change at all.

"Nothing of that concerns me, and my break is almost over. What do you want?" Pause. Then Anastasia caused Lea to jump through screaming:

"You want to do WHAT!?!?!?!", her voice filled with disbelieve and her mask fell, showing utter confusion. But after a moment her expressionless mask was back in place and Lea was not sure if she had really seen the change. She thought she had, because Anastasias little outburst had caused many heads to turn in their direction.

"This is the most stupid joke I have ever heard of" Anastasia continued, her voice again bare of emotions, but Lea noticed that her eyes were glowing in an intense read, letting her assume that her roommate was angry "So either come to the point or hang up. Of course it is ridiculous. I could name you many reasons. No, there are no rules that actually forbid it, still it is absurd." Pause. The red glow faded "Alright, that is true. Can you guarantee that? If this is a trap, I'll make you regret it" Now her tone was threatening. "Yes, that means that I agree." Lea could have sworn to hear the caller cheer. "Where and when? I will be there."

Immediately, she disconnected the call. After she had stared a few seconds at the handy in disbelieve, she turned her head to a Lea who was eagerly waiting for an explanation. Instead she got a question: "Did this call really happen?" Lea nodded. "Than could you tell our teacher that I'l take the day of to work on a little project?"

"Eh, sure, but what is this all about?"

"I'll tell you in our room, first I have to get some books." With that, Anastasia stood up, leaving her unfinished plate behind, grabbed the stairs with her hair and climbed to the next door. Lea blinked.

* * *

Later that day, after classes were over, Lea sat on her bed and watched Anastasia trying to learn some dancing techniques which she had looked up in some books from the library. Right foot forward, left foot to the left, and so on.

"So let me see if I get this straight." Lea addressed her red-haired roommate. "A fairy, that, after your description, dresses and curses like a street-punk, saves you from a bunch of other fairies, hurts herself to get your number and now she has invited you to the ball at Alfea from that all witches have been banned long ago."

Anastasia didn't turn into Leas direction and continued dancing with an imaginary partner while answering: "Correct."

"And you actually plan to take the offer."

"Of course."

Lea frowned. "Don't you think that is dangerous? I mean, most fairies might not be so happy about a witch in their school, and if other witches crash the party, you might be held responsible."

Anastasia still didn't turn and continued dancing. "Of course it is dangerous, but a risk I am willing to take. From what I know about this special fairy, I don't think that she would tell anyone. It would surprise me if she'd have any fairy-friends at all. Then nobody is going to expect a witch there. And this is just the second day of the year, there are hundreds of students at Alfea, so despite of my unusual coloring, I don't think anyone will notice that I am not a student."

That calmed most of Leas worries about her roommate, still, something was bugging her.

"So this strange fairy…. Do you think she has some second thoughts inviting you?"

"Of course she has. Unfortunately I don't know what exactly she is after yet, but this is just another move of her to get whatever she wants from me. Well, sol I will go and hope to look through her scheme. Whatever she is playing for, it should be worth knowing more about it. Besides, this is a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity. Being able to go to Alfea as a witch and not having to sneak in, able to gather information's about the other two schools out of first hand. That didn't happen since the defeat of Lord Darkar."

Lea frowned."Fine, but that is not what I meant with second thoughts. First she saves you without wanting anything in return, now she invites you to a _dance_. Don't you think her interest could be more…personal?"

That caused Anastasia to stop in her movements and look at Lea over her shoulder. The disbelieve was written all over her face.

"Don't be ridiculous. Aside from both of us being female, I am a witch and she is a fairy. We are living contrasts. And she might behave like she is doing what she is doing just to be nice, but nobody would do that in reality, not under the given circumstances. She is after something else, that is for sure."

Waving Leas suggestions off like that, she continued her practice. Lea shrugged. If her roommate decided to once again see life as one big spy game in that everyone did everything with second intentions, than that was her problem. She stood up and headed for the door.

"Okay, I wish you good luck then. I am going now, do not expect me back anytime soon."

"And where do you want to go?"

"I had a little talk with our transformation-teacher as you suggested. And he suggested I should now and then use my free time to practice my cat-side. That means, I will now go out of the school, transform and spend some time exploring the forest in my jaguar form, for the purpose of understanding the needs of my cat-side better and this way getting more control about it. Who knows, maybe I'll even hunt some mammals."

"I see. Then have a good hunt."

Lea grinned and waved her roommate goodbye.

* * *

Later that day, at the evening, shortly after nine o'clock, Anastasia was leaving the bus and walking towards the gates of Alfea. She was wearing------

Next to the gate, Ann-Sophie was leaning against the wall and walked towards her as soon as she noticed her. To Anastasias surprise, she was still wearing casual clothes, a simple jeans and a shirt. With a happy smile on her face, she greeted Anastasia:

"His Damsel, so glad that you could make it." She let her eyes wander about the witches body. "You look delicious."

Anastasia blinked. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but definitely not that. She replied:

"Thanks. You look…not as I expected, considering the event."

"Oh, that." Ann-Sophie rolled her eyes while leading Anastasia through the gates and towards the entrance of the school. "you must know, I don't think very highly about formal clothes. But I guess that you'll insist on it, won't you."

Anastasia wasn't sure what exactly that meant, so she said: "Let's just say, as the hostess you should at least dress as such."

Ann-Sophie signed. "Alright, if you insist…"

She stopped walking and spread her arms. Anastasia took a step back when she saw the space around Ann-Sophie getting darker, until the fairy was surrounded by an egg-shaped, completely black shape.

Then the shape started to shrink, disappearing in Ann-Sophie's body. But parts of the blackness remained, clinging to her like a dress. And it was a dress indeed. Now she---------

Anastasia was surprised, but not impressed. "Nice trick, but why didn't you put that on in the first place?"

"As I told yah, I am not a fan of formal clothes. Actually, If you were not here, I 'd not were it or not come to the ball at all. But you agreed to come, and your opinion matters to me. I hope you like it, I've almost worked the entire day on it."

The red-headed witch eyed her companion suspiciously. Once again this fairy wasn't making any sense. Why should she not want on an event like this, except a witch accompanied her? And why spent an entire day in creating something that she didn't really want to use? It all sounded to stupid to be true, but why in the world would someone invite such a lie?

Then Anastasia noticed something at Ann-Sophie that made her eyes widen in surprise for a moment. It was a rather dark night and the stars were not spending much light, so she might not have noticed it if it wasn't for the lights out of the windows of the school and the little lamps along the way of the school-yard.

Ann-Sophie's eyes, which yesterday had been blue, were now black. Completely black all over, looking like two endless holes inside her head and it was impossible to tell where to the fairy was looking.

"Is everything okay with your eyes?" Anastasia asked. For the first moment, Ann-Sophie was confused.

"Eh, actually yes, what should……..Oh, right, that." She chuckled and continued walking, Anastasia coming with her. "Well, that is one of the good sides of being the fairy of darkness. If my surroundings are all dark, my eyes become like this. Creeps the shit out of most people. And like this, I can see perfectly in the darkness, even if it is pitch-black."

"Interesting skill. So you can see with them like it would be day?" Anastasia asked, eager to find out more about this puzzle of a person.

"No, even I know that you need sunrays to see colors. What I see are shapes. Okay, a little color is there also. Thousands of different types of black, grey and blue. Your skin, for example, is in a light blue for me, and your hair, along with your dress, are in a dark kind of grey. And where we are already talking about my eyes, please wait a moment."

They stopped. By now they were in front of the stairs to the entrance, which was lighted by some lamps. And they stood in front of the gleam of light. Anastasia watched Ann-Sophie blinking a few ties, and then her eyes were back to normal.

"That's one of the problems with my eyes" the fairy explained. "If they are black while I look into light, I am blinded. Hell, even the flash of a camera would make my eyes useless for five minutes. Anyway, I prefer you in white and red."

Anastasia couldn't believe it. This could not be the truth. Who would be dump enough to tell someone that she has just known for like a day everything about her powers and even her weak sots? This girl was either very naïve if she thought such honesty would grant her Anastasias trust, or very clever, if she had invited weak spots that weren't really there to have an advantage against Anastasia.

Because at the moment she could not make out what was the case, she just said: "Nice." and followed her hostess inside.

Moments later, they entered Alfeas great hall side by side. The floor was filled with pairs, dancing to some love song. The colorful, various dresses of the fairies stood in a clear contrast to the white-blue uniform of the specialists. While most people were dancing, those who weren't lucky enough to have a partner were just wandering alone or taking pieces of food and drinks from the rich filled tables, since this was no music to dance alone.

The unusual pair entered the dance floor. They caught some glances, for Anastasias white skin and Ann-Sophie's black dress were a rarity. Ann-Sophie gave everyone she caught looking a death-glare, what made the most fast turn their heads away. The seniors from yesterday noticed them too and shot them angry glances, but did nothing else, perhaps because they didn't want to explain how they knew that Anastasia was a witch.

"Okay Damsel" Ann-Sophie addressed her companion "you now have the honor of me asking something that I have never asked anyone before. Would you like to take the lead?"

She hated it. Anastasia really hated it when she didn't knew what others wanted from her. And she hated it even more if she had to ask. "The lead in what?" she asked, her tone not betraying her annoyance of the situation.

"The lead of the dance, of course." Ann-Sophie answered like it had been obvious. "Or did you really think someone like me would know how to dance?"

Now that is was said, actually not. But neither had Anastasia thought that Ann-Sophie would like to dance with her. She thought that she would either ask questions concerning witches or leaving her alone, letting her try to get information through having conversations with others and then listening in to gather information by herself or crushing the conversation and playing Anastasia. So what could she possible intend to accomplish with dancing wither personally. But well, if the fairy wanted to play, she would play along, and she would win this game, even if she didn't knew the rules yet.

With a fake smile (not that Ann-Sophie noticed) the red-head held out her hand, which the dark-skinned fairy gladly took, and said with false (not that Ann-Sophie noticed) politeness: "It would be my honor, _princess_."

During the dance, Anastasia couldn't help but smile. The time spent to practice basically dancing-skills had been more than worth it. Soon she figured that dancing with someone could tell you allot about the person. While An-Sophie's intentions were still a mystery to Anastasia, she learned more about the fairy's skills. As far as she could tell, the bald headed girl had a lot of stamina and strength, but the lacked the patience and discipline to move it in the rigth directions and take full advantage of it. But while her movements were rather clumsy and ungraceful, Anastasia could tell that the girl took everything into doing it right. She could see it in the determined look in her face and feel it in the muscles who tensed every time Ann-Sophie noticed a mistake in her movements and tried harder to fit hers with Anastasias.

But while Ann-Sophie's skills became an open book to her, the person herself remained a puzzle. Such an impatient, determined person like her just didn't fit the thing that Anastasia thought was played here. So why was Ann-Sophie doing all this, inviting a witch to Alfea. Maybe she didn't really wanted something from Anastasia personally, but just enjoyed the thrill of the forbidden. Anastasia despised such useless behavior, but it could be an explanation.

Deciding that she could not unravel this web now, she spent her time otherwise. She and Ann-Sophie had found a routine and know Anastasia could move her attention to other things. Carefully she listened to the chatting around her, looking for key-words and moved her attention to the source if she heard it. Like this she was able together quite a lot of gossip and other minor information's that might be useful if she had to deal with students of the two other schools. It was funny that people thought they were save talking about their problems in a crowded room, assuming that al the noise would keep their secrets secret. Or forget their names because there were so many. Funny.

Finally the music stopped and so did the dancing pairs. Ann-Sophie was just about to say something as a loud scream cut through the silence. It was coming from the main entrance of the hall.

Hundreds of heads turned around to see what the matter was. The matter soon showed itself as dozens of dark-purple creatures came storming through the door.

Their shape was that of a human, but they lacked any limps that would define their gender. They had no faces, no muscles, only a human form and a blank skin. They made no single tone while storming in the hall, not through their mouths that weren't there and not through their feet hitting the floor.

Anyway, tones were made by the fairies and specialists who were screaming and yelling all together, overwhelmed as they were. But one voice cut through them all:

"Those creatures are Horr'ill" shouted Professor Avalon. "Their touch does not do physical damage, but causes a great nausea, so be wary!"

His words were soon proven right, as the "Horr'ills" attacked, striking and kicking at the party-members. Their punches went right through the bodies of their opponents like they were ghosts, and everyone that had been touched in such a way instantly turned green and fell to it's knees, panting and coughing, some even vomited, as the suddenly felt extremely sick.

It took a few moments, but slowly the party-members reacted. There was a blending light and rainbow colors shoot into the night through the enormous glasses, as hundreds of fairies transformed one after another and hundreds of energy-weapons in every color were activated with buzzing sounds. Dozens of swords, axes and spears were lifted and sunk into the Horr'ills, together with dozens of energy blasts and beams of all kinds. When one of the purple creatures was hit, it faded in a fog of purple dust.

But the students were taken by surprise and already over a hundred of purple creatures had entered the hall, and even more were coming. The crowded students stood each other in the way and so the battle went on.

"Holy shit" commented Ann-Sophie who hadn't moved at all "what the hell is that?"

Anastasia, who had also stayed where she was, eyed her with suspicion. "Don't you know? This must be the trick of this year to crash the party. You know, we witches do that every year."

Immediately, Ann-Sophie's head turned to her.

"Wait. Do you mean you knew something like this would happen and didn't tell me?"

Anastasia took a step back. Damn, that girl really didn't seem to know. In the worst case, she might think that Anastasia was responsible. How could she get out of this?

"Yes…" she said, and before she could react, Ann-Sophie had lifted her in the air with a bone-crushing embrace, stopping her from breathing.

"Thank you, damsel, thank you!" The bald-headed girl said, in a happy tone like she really meant it. "That you knew me so well in this short time. A big brawl is just what I need to make this day perfect. Really, thank you. This surprise is great!"

_Surprise?_, Anastasia thought perplexed as Ann-Sophie released her and transformed in a black light. Did the fairy really believe that? She had thought Ann-Sophie had known and would have planned for this, but….

After Ann-Sophie had transformed, she morphed her gloves and added the blades to them again. Waving goodbye to Anastasia, she turned towards the attackers and ran of, yelling:" I'll be right back after I enjoyed your little present."

Her childish glee stood in a sharp contract to the loud battle cry she roared as she threw herself into battle.

* * *

While the fairies and specialist fought the intruders in the hall, they did not know that they already filled almost the entire building. The witches who had sneaked in the school had conjured them up through a magic box that they had placed in some corridor. They had waited until there were Horr'ills almost all over the school-ground and then ordered them to attack the party. They had already fleet the crime-scene, but the magic box was still spilling more creatures.

While most of them were drawn to the great hall, a few of them sensed a target elsewhere, inside one of the dorms. They didn't think twice about acting, for their only purpose was to cause grief for the enemy to the enemies of the ones who released them. This caused every Horr'ill near the dorm to turn toward it and enter. The closed dos didn't stop them, for they walked through them like they weren't there.

What they found was one single girl lying in her bed, eyes closed and sleeping peacefully while her green hair shimmered in the moonlight shining through the window.

Untouched from the scene, the purple creatures circled the bed. One stepped forward and put its hand inside the sleeping girl, in order to make her feel ill.

Esther knew that something wasn't right. She could feel it. She felt sick, which was odd, because she hadn't suffered from any illness as long as she could remember. But their was an ugly feeling in her stomach, like vinegar would be pumped through her veins. Groaning she opened her eyes….

….and regretted it immediately. Why was it dark? She had never woken up in the dark by herself, so who could have awoken her, and why? Then she spotted the human-shaped creature standing next to her, looking at her with a face that held no eyes, no mouth, no nose, was just bare and flat, but still she got the feeling like the creature would see into her soul.

Esther gasped shocked and began coughing violently as the nausea caused by the creatures touch washed over her even stronger. She noticed al the other creatures standing around her bed.

She panicked. It was the humans. The humans had come to her to take her again, to take her back to this horrible place where they had held her and done all these horrible things to her while looking down at her with this emotionless expressions, just like this creatures did it at the moment. They wanted to hurt her again. They wanted to take her away from the rays of the sun again.

Desperate in fear, Esther screamed and transformed while doing so. The thorns of the tendrils around her body ripped in the sheets of her bed, but she didn't care, all her attention was focused creature that was still hurting her through its touch, unbothered by her change.

Tears dwelled up in her eyes. The human was not afraid, so she would have to hurt it if she wanted to avoid being taken away.

Sobbing, she lashed out wither right arm on which her whip out of tendrils had grown. The natural whip ripped through the Horr'ill with its sharp torn, cuing it and some others into a half and dusting them. Unbothered by the loss of their comrades, another one of the Horr'ills stepped forward to continue what the first one started. Ore tears ran down Esther's cheeks and she screamed while lashing out again and again, dusting two or three creatures with every swing, until the room was emptied of them.

She was breathing heavily when she saw that more faceless humans came through the closed door. Crying, she held up her hands, palms pointing at the intruders. Why, why couldn't they leave her alone? Didn't they already hurt her enough in the last years? Why did she have to suffer even more? WHY?

Her vision blurred with tears, she shoot volley after volley of little thorns in the creatures, piercing through their bodies like hundred little needles. But the effect was not as good as the whip's, because the Horr'ills felt no pain like the humans Esther thought they were, and it took tow direct hits to dust them. Slowly, the creatures came nearer and nearer, while Esther was desperately begging them to leave her alone under tears. Finally, one of them reached her side and stretched out its arm, and under her fear, Esther's desperation broke free.

* * *

In the hall, Ann-Sophie was having the best time of her life while she beheaded yet another creature with her right blade. She held up her left one to block a punch of another foe. The fist of the creature was cut of the wrist as it touched the blade and Ann-Sophie quickly stabbed it into the creatures gut, dusting it.

So far, the battle was in a balance and no side could beat the other. While one specialist or one fairy could take likely four Horr'ills at once, there were about six other for everyone that was dusted. By know, the purple creatures were everywhere in the hall, and because of that most fairies could not take complete advantage of their powers, because others stood in their way. Many fairies had flown into the air, and blasted the creatures from above, but soon they had to find out that the Horr'ills could jump very high, and every time a carless fairy had a creature jumping right through her, the nausea forced her back to the ground. By now, dozens of careless or unskilled party-members were kneeling on the round, coughing, spitting and vomiting, unable to continue the figth. The purple creatures ignored them.

The ones still standing held their groundmanaged to keep it. The freshman fought mostly alone while sophomores and seniors built battle squads and shielded each other. Around this groups, the creatures were dusted quickly, but the numbers who swarmed in through the doors seemed limitless.

Surprisingly, the teachers did nothing to help the students and just stood by the side, only dusting every attacker that came close to them. They just watched the battle and Faragonda, Griselda and Avalon teleported everyone out of the battle who seemed to bear the creatures touch very badly and cured them.

While Ann-Sophie cut through two creatures at once, removing the torsos from the legs, then dusted another one with a roundhouse kick with a blade morphed to her boot, she thought that this was becoming a bit boring. These creatures had no weapons, so she had a longer range with her blades than them, so most were dusted before they came near enough to touch her. She thought bout morphing another weapon, but which? A fistfight with gloves like steel would be funny, but she already had had plenty of that in her life. Maybe…

Of course. When her father had given her the weapon, he said it would take every form that she wished it to have.

Quickly, she jumped up and flew a few meters away from the fights. Concentrating her thoughts on her hands, she brought the blades on her arms to disappear. Instead, know the gloves morphed and added deadly, sharp claws to her fingers. Smiling satisfied, Ann-Sophie lifted them high into the air and charged back into battle. With a hissing sound, she drove them through a creature that was just attacking an axe-swinging specialist from behind. It felt good. Very good.

Tow creatures attacked her. She ducked under the blow of the first one and ripped through its chest. Then she blocked the punch of the second with her left claw, the magic weapon stopping the creatures attack. Her right claw shot forwards, grabbed the creatures head and pressed together. The Horr'ill faded.

That was it. The thrill of the danger of being within her foes range, risking their touch, and then the satisfaction of running her claws through their bodies.

With a roar, she lunged to her next victim, ripping it to shreds before it was dusted. As another one kicked at her, she didn't block correctly and the kick hit her forearm, causing pain. Growling, she delivered a kick by herself, her feet also having claws now, and hit the attackers belly.

She jumped again and flew up in the air to get a better picture of the scene. By now, there were even more attackers than defenders in the hall, and the purple creatures had completely filled the area near the door. The squads of the more skilled students tried to reach each other and form a united front, but with the endless numbers of attackers the pressure was just to big and the ones who fought alone could not risk running to the groups without exposing their backs. Like that, they made it harder for their friends to shot the creatures without having them in the line of fire.

After she clawed the chest of a creature that jumped at her, Ann-Sophie shrugged, it was not like these creatures would kill. Half roaring, half laughing like crazy, she flew directly towards the area before the door, where the most Horr'ills were gathered at one place. She landed right between them, dusting one through landing right through him. After her feet touched the floor, she whirled around like a demon, tearing her claws through the creatures and clawing out in every direction. Because she was in the middle of them, it was nearly impossible to not hit someone. As soon as the next meters around her were clear, she lunged into a crowded area again and used the numbers of the creatures against them, jumping around and lashing out in every direction, it was hard for the Horr'ills to get her, but some managed. Luckily, their touches were swiftly, for Ann-Sophie was always moving and hard to grab. The swift touches were unpleasant and sometimes painful, but so far she cold avoid blows at her torso, so she remained on her feet while ripping through the backup of the creatures and like this taking some pressure from the other students.

This was what she was living for.

* * *

While Ann-Sophie had her fun in the adrenalin, Anastasia stayed out of the fight and walked into the next corner like the whole fight would not bother heart all. In the corner, she took a glass from the next food-filled table and nipped on it while watching the battle. It was impressive. Whoever was responsible for this party-crasher, it must be a skilled witch. The spell had to be prepared during the holidays, most likely in a group, because she could not imagine anyone doing this in one evening. Aside from the overwhelming power of the spell, it also had a great effect. No matter how the fight ended, or when, this party was over. The blades and spells from the party-members had left cracks and holes all over the room, tables were reduced to peaces and even some windows had holes. And while no one was seriously harmed, the puke would take some time to get rid of. And as a bonus, every food or drinks that the Horr'ills touched became rotten. Really impossible to continue the party. It seemed like every side would take profit out of this. The witches had tested a powerful spell and crashed the party, while the fairies and specialists got some practical training.

While leaning against the table, Anastasia watched the party-members fight and picked out the best of them to examine their powers. Whenever a purple creature broke out of the brawl and ran towards her, she quickly stabbed it with one of her pigtails through the chest, remaining completely calm. When two creatures charged her together, she swung her pigtail in a wide curve, its sharp point slicing through the creatures and dusting them together.

But then, it was not a Horr'ill that came towards her out of the brawl, although she would have preferred that. Instead two of the seniors from yesterday flow towards her, the blue haired leader and the one who had fired the lightning's in the yellow outfit.

"Now look what we've got here" Said the leader in the same nasty tone like yesterday. "our little pathetic witch-friend who has decided to play evil. Don't you think evil witches should be punished?" she asked her companion. Before the other senior could answer, Anastasia said, arms crossed and challenging:

"Come on, you are not stupid enough to think that this is my doing, otherwise I would not be here anymore. Besides, I f you didn't out me until know, because you are afraid that others would learn about you spending your free time through bullying innocents for fun, you have no reason to do it now, it would be clear soon that I am not responsible for this." She nodded to the battle.

The seniors smirked. The one in the yellow outfit said: "Now look at this, the witch can think. But who talks about blowing your cover? Actually we wanted to help you. Isn't there one of this filthy creatures behind you?" she asked, mocking concern.

"Oh yes, I see it to, watch out!" the other senior added.

Anastasia didn't liked that, there could not be anyone behind her, behind her was the wall. Then the blue-haired senior waved her hand and send a two meter tall wave towards Anastasia. Reacting fast, she raised her pigtails and lashed them through the water, but that was useless. The water swapped over her, covering her body all over and before Anastasia could step out of it, the senior transformed the water to ice. Frozen, Anastasia now stood in the corner like a statue, unable to move.

The seniors smirked, obvious pleased with their doing. "Oh, sorry, know I have hit you, what a stupid mistake." The leader stated amused.

"And look, there is another one behind her." The other fairy added, shooting a lightning at the frozen witch and hitting her in the right shoulder. Laughing, the seniors turned around and flew back to the battle.

Silently, Anastasia cursed. When the water had frozen, she had managed to heat the blood inside of her enough to keep the blood flowing through her brain, this way letting her still register what her eyes saw and think about the situation. So far, she was pretty much screwed. Like this, she could not use her powers to heat her blood anymore as it was before the ice, the magic in the ice somehow prevented that, even her pigtails could not break free. And she was sure that she had heard something split when the lightning hit her. By now she could not feel any pain, but that would most likely come when she was unfrozen. By now, she was trapped in a likely three centime broad layer of Ice, and the low temperature of the ice had caused her body to freeze also.

So far, all she could do was waiting.

* * *

Meanwhile, the battle went on. Thanks to Ann-Sophie attacking the creatures at the entrance and easing the pressure through keeping the backup busy, the students had won some ground, most of the specialist had joined with each other and built one big regiment in the end of the hall where the walls were out of glass. Although the regiment was not the best when it came to standing in lines, their formation managed to empty their end of the hall from the intruders and like this they could now fight having the attackers only in front of them. They marched forwards towards the door, gaining ground with every step. While swords, spears, axes and other weapons for close-combat sliced through every creature that came near the regiment, those armed with pistols, bows and shuriken fired out of the second line between their companions with close-combat weapons and took care for the ones in the first line only having to deal with one against one. Like this, they easily pushed the intruders back.

The fairies were all in the air by now, most of them gathering about the specialists and also blasting the creatures away. There were still some students fighting alone, but so few that the specialist could easily avoid hitting them while shooting, and the fairies could now use explosive attacks. Slowly, but steady, they were conquering back the hall, having already gained the half of it. The teachers appeared rather pleased.

Ann-Sophie had left the area in front of the door and was know fighting on the side of the specialist regiment. She got a lot of odd glances, but people had other problems know than wondering about a fairy with claws.

Suddenly, all of the Horr'ills faded away altogether. It came so quickly that it took the students some time to realize what happened and stop slicing the air or firing beams at the floor. After a short moment of silence, people began to cheer loudly and wondering about what happened.

Soon they got an answer when a group of seven fairy-sophomores came through the door, one of them holding a dark box. She explained that she had remembered having read something about Horr'ills, that they needed an object to be summoned, so she had gathered her friends, they sneaked out of the hall and fought their way through the foe-filled corridors of the school, until they found the box and ended its spell.

Faragonda honored them personally for their brave work and even Griselda looked impressed. Everyone gave them applause.

Suddenly a furious scream made them all stop.

Already expecting another attack, everyone turned towards the source of the voice, to see a very angry (and worried) Ann-Sophie standing next to the still frozen Anastasia.

"Who the fuck froze my damsel!? More important, who of you jerks could get her out of this instead of just looking at her!?" she demanded to know.

Griselda stepped forward.

"Watch your mouth, young lady" she said, causing Ann-Sophie to growl silently. God, she hated that title. "I will take care of this, but after that you should have some explanations to make, because I know for sure that this is not a student."

PERFECT, thought Anastasia as Griselda stepped to her side, something like this just had to happen. Well, at least she was getting out of here.

Griselda lifted her hands towards Anastasias frozen body and they began to glow in a green light, as did Anastasia. She could feel it getting warmer inside of her, the warmth spreading from her chest to the other parts of her body, and slowly she could feel them again.

But when the warmth reached her right shoulder, pain bolted through her body, like thousands of burning needles would be forced into her flesh at once. The pain was overwhelming. Anastasia wanted to scream, but couldn't. She could not even move. Suffering, she begged Griselda to stop in her thought, but remained unnoticed. The pain was spreading and it felt like her arm was on fire. Curse her vulnerability towards frost, when the lightning had hit her, something must have split.

The pain was still growing and wanted to break free. And it did.

Griselda's warming made her able to use her body again. She was still trapped in a hard layer of ice, so she could not move them, only press them against the barrier in an attempt to break free and ease the pain somehow.

Clink

The ice around her pigtails broke and they lashed out violently. One hit the nearby standing Ann-Sophie in the chest and tossed her a few meters away. The other one crushed against the wall, leaving deep and long cracks and caused her to fall backwards.

Clink

The ice around her head broke too. Her eyes blazed crimson-red and she let out a scream born in enormous pain. Most people backed up as one of her pigtails, both were lashing out uncontrolled, hit Griselda, who could barley block it with a magic shield.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

Her back hit the floor and the rest of the ice around her body shattered. And not only that, as the ice was gone, her right arm fell from her body, parted from the shoulder through a clean cut, where the force of the lightning had caused the frozen body to split. Oddly, no blood was flowing.

Finally being able to move, rolling around and senseless striking the air while crying in pain(2). One of her pigtails burst right through a table and lifted it up, reducing it to splinters while her pigtails were still lashing out and damaging the wall, the floor, the furniture.

Quickly, the teachers rushed to the scene and Faragonda created a bubble around Anastasia to protect the students from her pigtails (and the flying pieces of the table).

Finally, after a long moment of pain, Anastasia gained control about her movements again. She gritted her teeth and laid the hand of her left arm to the stump where once her right arm had been. Her hair itched a few times, than it stopped moving. Faragonda let her bubble disappear.

Immediately, Ann-Sophie rushed to her side, helping her up.

"Oh, shit shit shit, this is all my fault. Fast, we have to bring you to the infirmary, maybe they can do something…" she babbled, both worry and guilt in her tone, also in her expression, and wanted to drag Anastasia to the doors. But Anastasia refused to move. Her eyes still blazing, she hissed through gritted teeth:

"No! Give me my arm!"

Ann-Sophie looked at her like she had gone insane. Faragonda said in a gentle, understanding voice:

"Child, I understand this is a hard situation and a great shock for you, but I must tell you that your arm might be…"

Anastasia glared at her and interrupted: "No fucking questions. JUST…GIVE…ME…MY...CURSED…ARM!!!!"

Most people by know thought that the pain and the loss had made her unable to think cleary and that she denied the loss of her limp. When nobody did anything, just watch her with pity, Ann-Sophie was even looking away in shame because she blamed herself for that and could not bear the guilt, Anastasia spat: "Oh, curse you all!", let her right pigtail shot forward, wrap it around her missing arm, lifted it up, pulled it back to her and took it with her left hand before anyone could react.

Her audience was shocked, but before anyone could say something, the open flesh at Anastasias shoulder where the arm was missing turned red and began to bubble, like a pot of heated blood. Slowly, she lead her sliced of arm back to the place were it belonged, right at the moving surface of her open flesh. When flesh touched flesh, there was a sound like a hot pan had been touched with cold water, and Anastasia hissed in pain, closing her eyes. Still, she held the arm in place, and the party-members saw the arm melt together with her flesh again. With gritted teeth, Anastasia made some slow, painfully movements wither arm, then she let go and said. "Fine. What now?"

Everyone just stared at her with aw, until Faragonda said: "Well, this is…surprising. Are you sure you don't need the nurse?" Anastasia nodded."That is a pleasant turn of events. Do you know how you ended up in the ice?"

Anastasia smirked. "This student" she pointed at the blue-haired senior "_accidently_ hit me with a wave and accidently froze it after that. Then this one" she pointed at the senior in the yellow outfit "_accidently_ hit me with a lightning what made my arm split."

Getting this information, An-Sophie could barley stop herself from going over to the seniors and kick them in the face, but she decided to just give them the deadliest glare ever. If looks could kill, they'd be dead a hundred times already, and really, they did flinch through the fury in those blue eyes.

All teachers gave them scolding looks. "Is this true?" Griselda demanded to know. "Because, if it is…" she let the sentences unfinished. The blue haired senior quickly tried to justify her actions.

"Okay, the bolt was an accident, but I admit that the ice was on purpose. I thought she wanted to attack me, after I found out that she is a witch.

The silence was so quiet, you cold have heard a leave fall.

Many jaws dropped. Then the tension exploded. Half of the red-fountain-students activated their weapons again and every fairy prepared an attack, while words such as "Witch!", "Spy!", and "Intruder!" were shouted. But before anyone could attack or the teachers could interfere, Ann-Sophie stepped protective in front of Anastasia, arms raised, blades and claws out, facing the other students. She snarled:

"Everyone who as much as touches her is going to lose some important limbs!"

Everybody could tell by the tone her voice held that she was deadly serious and they stopped.

Once again there was a moment of astonished silence, then Faragonda acted.

"Alright, this matter has reached a new limit. The two of you" she pointed at Ann-Sophie and Anastasia, her voice demanding no refuses "will come to my office immediately. Griselda, Avalon, you come with me. Palladium, you are in charge of the clearing-up operations."

Palladium nodded an understanding. Faragonda snapped her fingers and she, the two girls, Griselda and Avalon disappeared in a green light.

A second later, they appeared in Faragondas office, the headmistress sitting in her chair, Avalon and Griselda standing to her left and her right and the two girls standing on the other side of the table. Ann-Sophie was a little dazed from the teleportation, Anastasia appeared completely calm.

Immediately, Faragonda started, addressing Ann-Sophie:

"Considering your earlier concern for Miss…" she looked at Anastasia, who said: "Anastasia. Just Anastasia."

"For Miss Anastasia" Faragonda continued "I suspect you knew all along that she is a witch and therefore not invited to the event tonight."

Ann-Sophie scoffed. "Yes, I knew, and you are wrong, she was invited, to be more detailed, by me."

Faragonda arched an eyebrow while Griselda appeared very angry. She scolded: "Miss Winter, aside from your disrespectful behavior, at first you have no authorization to invite people who the school did not invite, and second, could it be that you have completely forgotten the last one of our rules here?"

"Oh, don't start with this stupid "No magic in the floors or we transform you into a frog" and "Stay away from witches" crap, that is such…" the bald-headed fairy yelled angrily, but Anastasia stopped her through gently placing a hand on her shoulder. Ann-Sophie looked over in Anastasias demanding expression, then sighed and stopped. Anastasia addressed Griselda.

"If you allow me I'd like to point out that Ann-Sophie did nothing for that she could be punished. I know about that rule and it is a joke. I'd be surprised if it is even official. You have no punishment for the breaking of this rule, instead of what witches might do to the breakers. So far, it seems like you have laid her punishment in my hands."

Every head in the room had turned to Anastasia and everyone seemed to be quite surprised. Griselda went on.

"That might be true, but there is still the fact that she has invited you, despite the fact that all witches have been banned from this event long ago."

Unbothered, Anastasia replied. "Perhaps then you have forgotten that the banishment had been meant as a temporary solution in the time in that the tensions between fairies and witches disturbed the peace on former events. As no better solution than leaving Cloud tower out of the event had been found, the temporary solution might have stayed a solution forever, but officially, it ended five years after it was passed and has never been renewed because nobody thought that would be necessary. So officially there is nothing that forbids me being here, and as long as it is not proven that I've followed Ann-Sophie's invitation or just appeared by myself, none of us can be blamed for anything."

The three teachers were shut up by that, what made Ann-Sophie grin and she gave Anastasia an appraising nod. Griselda seemed to be impressed against her will and Avalon gave Faragonda a questioning glance about the truth of this statement, to which Faragonda nodded.

After a brief moment of silence Faragonda said. "That would leave the question if miss Anastasia, and with that Miss Winter, are in any way responsible for what happened." Ann-Sophie wanted to interrupt, but Faragonda silenced her with a strict gesture of her hand. "I know that this pranks are a tradition, still, we can't just ignore a possible responsible guilty person while she is in our power to make her take response for her actions, and if one of our students has been convinced to sabotage an event of her own school, the importance of the case reaches a new level."

Before the girls could defend themselves, Avalon spoke:

"If you'd allow me to say my opinion to this matter?"

"I ask for it." Faragonda answered.

Avalon cleared his throat. "It might have almost been a century since I have dealt with Horr'ills the last time, but I know for sure that the summoning of them is a very complex process and requires a lot of magical energy. Although this particular young witch seems to be very bright" he gave Anastasia a smile "I'd highly doubt that she, as a freshman, posseses the power or the knowledge that would be required to make a summoning of the size we've encountered tonight. Whatever is the reason for her being here, I don't think that the Horr'ill attack has anything to do with it."

Faragonda accepted that.

"Very well, I think we can trust your knowledge in this matter. Still I'd like to know who it came to this invitation and why it was accepted." She looked at the girls expectantly.

Ann-Sophie was the first to answer, a bit heated: "Hey Miss whatever-your-name-was"

Anastasia hissed "It's Faragonda!", but Ann-Sophie didn't care

"You might be my headmistress and decide what I learn, but in my free time, it is my fucking business who I make friends with and how."

Offended by such disrespect, Griselda wanted to scold her, but Faragonda stopped her with a calming motion of her arm. She nodded to Anastasia to give her answer.

"Did you ever hear form a witch being invited to this event? Me neither. This was an opportunity I just had to take."

Faragonda asked further: "Does Miss Griffin know that you are here?"

Anastasia shook her head. "I've thought about telling her, but I didn't want her to forbid it."

"Good, I think it would be the best then for you to return to Cloud tower and give miss Griffin a full report of what happened tonight."

"I'd appreciate that." Anastasia replied.

"Wait!" Ann-Sophie jumped in. "Couldn't you stay just a little longer? I still have to apologize for everything and I wanted to…"

Anastasia stopped her with a cold glance. "I think there is nothing to talk about." Her tone held as much coldness as her glance. "Miss Faragonda, I'd like to ask you to teleport me to Cloud tower immediately."

Faragonda nodded. "Gladly. Give Miss Griffin my greetings."

Again she snapped her fingers and Anastasia started to glow green. She did not look at Ann-Sopphie.

She'd better had, because if she had, she might have seen the blue-eyed fairy take a quick step to her side and grabbing her arm, saying: "Oh no, you won't get away that easily."

Before anyone could react, Ann-Sophie glowed too and in the next second, both girls disappeared.

Again the teachers where speechless.

Then Avalon chuckled. "It's been years since I've encountered such an odd pair. Watching how this relationship works out should prove to be interesting."

Faragonda nodded. "You know, I have always hoped for better relationships between allthe schools. Maybe this is a start."

Griselda was doubtful. "First of all, Miss Winter is a troublemaker and does not understand the concept of respect. Not the person I would chose to tighten the bonds with Cloud tower."

"Palladium says she has potential, just lacks discipline. We should give her a change." Avalon said.

"So we will." Faragonda said. "Now we should return to the hall and help with the reparations. And we should tell the students that Miss Anastasia and Winter have not been responsible for tonight's events, otherwise Miss Winter would get problems with her classmates."

"I'd not be surprised if she already has them." Griselda said. "And I think for her sudden leaving she should still get detention."

* * *

Miles away Anastasia and Ann-Sophie appeared on the bridge leading to cloud towers main entrance.

Immediately being aware of Ann-Sophie's presence, Anastasia batted away the hand holding her arm.

"What?!" she snapped, her calmness from before replaced by irritation, annoyance and anger. "What the fuck do you want now?! This night has already been enough of a disaster, I really don't want to deal with more right now!"

An-Sophie was both surprised and a bit hurt by Anastasias harsh words. "Well, I wanted to say sorry, first of all. I mean, this whole mess with your arm was my fault, I invited you in the first place, and I completely understand that you are angry at me now…" Anastasia interrupted her:

"Angry at YOU!? Oh, I am not angry at you. I might despise you by now, but I am not angry at YOU! I am angry at myself for ever joining this game of yours in the first place!"

Now Ann-Sophie was not only hurt, but also confused. "Game? What game are you talking about?"

Anastasia throw her arms up in desperation and groaned. "Come on, it's just the two of us now, so there is no more point in denying it. Not after everything this game has already ruined tonight. Really, I don't care what your intentions are, but I will not continue your game, not after it has opened a world of pain for me tonight!"

"WHAT! What are you talking about? World of pain? Aside from it being melodramatic, what's the meaning of it? Does your shoulder still hurt? Really, I am sorry about that and…"

Eyes blazing, Anastasia interrupted again: "You really can't see it, can't you? Well, then let me explain. Thanks to the loss of my arm, by know every fairy and every specialist knows about the strength of my hair and that I am vulnerable to frost. I have just been taken one of a witch best weapons for survival, the art of not letting the enemy know about my powers. Was that your intention?! Rob me of that so that I'd be at the same level with you, whose powers are obvious thanks to your outfit? Did you want a challenge between equals?!!"

Now Ann-Sophie was offended. "Hell, NO!! What is this game crap you are talking about?! Do you think I am a psycho who enjoys hurting others? I hated it watching you suffer under the attack of these senior bitches. But hey, you've showed them that their lousy attempts were no match for your healing power. That's good, isn't it?"

"Your naivety is pathetic." Anastasia sneered. "That was the worst part of all. Do you know what seeing such powers makes fools like you think? It makes them think "That girl can recover from bad injuries, so there is no reason to hold back in a fight, hey, maybe we should even use the sharp ends of our blades on her" But only because I am able to glue back lost limps that does NOT mean that it would not hurt like hell!!! And I tell you, it does! So you might understand that the possibility of experience dozens of moments of pain through the hands of fools who thinks it is okay to hurt me because I can recover is surely NOT a good thing. And besides, my healing Power has fucking limits!!! And I don't want to lose a arm for real because of others thinking I won't!"

Ann-Sophie was shocked. She had never thought of that. "Ah….I…..I didn't know…. Really, I am sorry. What can I do? Is there any way for me to make it up? If…if others think they can do that with you, maybe I could make them clear not to mess with us.."

Anastasias cold laugh was bare of any humor. "Oh, power and strength, that seems to be all you are interested in, right? You must think having big powers is fun and makes you untouchable, but that's a lie! Great power does not prevent pain, it creates it! So my body can stand more injuries than others? Fine, but that does also mean that people who intend to hurt me could doe much more cruel and painful things to me, for a time much longer than they could do to ordinary people. So thank you for reminding hundreds of fairies and specialist about that possibility!"

The bald-headed fairy was at a loss of words, and before she could answer anyway, their conversation was interrupted by the noise of steps which were coming towards them over the bridge. Both girls turned their heads to see a big, blond cat racing towards them. Alerted, An-Sophie got in a battle-stance, but Anastasia said: "Stay down, she's my roommate."

Ann-Sophie gave her a doubtful glance, but eased up. The jaguar came closer and shortly before it reached the two, it stopped, sat down and then changed into Lea. Ann-Sophie was impressed. And she had a question.

"Nice trick. But say, is that blood on your mouth?"

Lea rubbed the said area. "Thought the rain would have washed it away by now. My little stroll has been working out better than I thought. I caught a young deer, and, believe me, it tasted good. I guess you must be Ann-Sophie then. By what Anastasia said about you, you are not really what I've expected, although I was not sure what to expect."

"Don't worry" Anastasia said with a dry voice. "The event has not been what I've expected either."

"Oh, really, how often must I say that I am sorry?" Ann-Sophie asked, almost begging. "I hate how the night went out, but I cannot change it. I just hope I can still be your friend.."

"FRIEND!?!" Anastasia interrupted like she had never heard of such a thing. "I am not sure what we were before, but we definitely weren't friends, and we'll never be. Friendship is just an excuse for getting something without giving anything in return. Thanks, but I can live without that. And besides, I don't want to deal with you anymore, because I am no longer playing this game of yours."

Now it was Ann-Sophie's turn to be annoyed. "Damn it, damsel, I am not playing any freaking game. I only wanted to…wanted to…" she didn't dare finish the sentence.

Before Anastasia could make a comment about that, Lea jumped in.

"Alright, I think I have overheard what you said about friendship. But as far as I can tell, the two of you are talking around each other. And I dare to say that I am the only one around here who understands the situation. Ann-Sophie, you must see that my roommate tends to think that this world is only about knowledge, control and power about others. That's why she thinks you are after something for dealing with her. Well, maybe you are after something, I have my suspicions, but I don't think you want something that Anastasia expects. And that is why I will now ask you blunt and direct: Do you want to get into the pants of my roommate?"

Anastasia didn't know if she should laugh or curse at this ridiculous question, but Ann-Sophie sighed and scratched the back of her head, her eyes fixing Anastasia.

"To be honest, I've thought about that since I have set eyes on her for the first time."

While Lea grinned about having her suspicion confirmed, Anastasias jaw dropped. Finally she was able to speak:

"You, you don't want to say that I got frozen, shot at, had my arm split from me only because I misjudged your mating-need for a brilliant scheme?"

The other two looked at her baffled. "Arm split?" Lea asked, "Mating-need?" was Ann-Sophie's question.

What followed was an embarrassing silence.

Then Ann-Sophie said: "Ah, to hell with that. Okay, so I get horny around you, if that's what you mean with "mating-need". Maybe I should have told you, but hey, I didn't really lie, did I? You know, I really hate this sneaking around and giving hints, I prefer honest words, even if they hurt. Because I can fight what hurts me as long as I know it. I just didn't wanted to make any mistakes, hell, I barely know anything about you, so I thought an invitation to a ball could be a good start to get to know each other. Well, maybe I also did it to break some rules, just for the sake of disobeying, but that was not the main reason. And don't worry, I'd understand if you don't swing that way, but I'll be damned if I hadn't tried!"

Lea smiled: "You know, I could tell you some insider-info's, like what her favorite meal is, so that the second date will be better than the first."

"Enough!" Anastasia yelled. "To make that clear, whatever tonight was, it was NOT a date. Lea, thanks for your concern, but I will handle this myself. As for you…" she looked at Ann-Sophie like she did not know what to make of her. "You have been a puzzle to me since the first moment, and now I understand you even less. Considering what this single night with you has already cost my, I have no intentions of risking any more corresponding with you. For now, I'd be happy to not see you ever again." Ann-Sophie wanted to say something, but Anastasia didn't let her. "NO, no excuses, no pleas. For you r comfort, this has nothing to o with you being a girl, any boy would get the same rejection from me. YOU are the problem. You and your senseless actions. And I have no use for something like that in my life!"

With these words, she dashed through cloud towers main entrance and slammed the doors behind her. The other two remained dumb folded.

Then Lea laughed. "You surely got an emotional response out of her. Since I've been sharing a room with her, I didn't even see her smile. I think you might even have a change"

Ann-Sophie eyed her. "Didn't look tome that way, but damn, I'll still try. And you have no problem with us both being female, well, not that I would actually give a shit about your opinion?"

Lea smirked. "It's not really my place to interfere with Anastasias life, but I think she can use as much human contact as she can get. I admit that I cannot understand your desire for the same sex, but as long as you are not after me, I have no problem with you being who you are. Or Anastasia being who she is, but that has to show. Actually I doubt that she has a sexual orientation at all."

Ann-Sophie returned the smirk. "Well, thanks. And thanks for the offer with the information's also, but I want to win this GAME, as she calls it, by myself. However, you should go after her, otherwise she might think you are helping me. By the way ,nice meeting you."

"Nice meeting you too. If all fairies are like you, I don't really understand what the whole problem between our kinds is."

"Oh, believe me, I am the exception that proves the rule. Well, I'll go then, it's a long way back to Alfea, and my powers are drained. When does the next bus come?"

"Not before nine am."

"Great."

* * *

Hours later, in the morning, as it was already dawning, Ann-Sophie finally stood in front of her dorm. She was wet all over, from sweet and the rain. Really, she thought, at least the rain could have started a few minutes earlier, that would have made the conversation on the bride a bit more cliché.

Exhausted, she opened the door, deciding that she would skip classes and sleep the entire day. But after she had opened the door, she was completely awake in an instant.

The entire room was a mess. The walls, the floor and the roof were all pierced with dozens of big, long thorns, who stuck through chairs, tables, beds, wardrobes. On a few places the walls had huge scratches were a small layer of the stone itself had been ripped out. The windows were shattered and even the railway of the balcony had some missing parts.

The center of the destruction seemed to be Esther's bed, where said person was sitting on what remained of her bed, if the heap of splint and feathers could be named that anymore. The green-haired girl was looking around dumbly, appearing like she had just awakened a few seconds ago, what was the truth.

"Bloody hell, Esther, what happened in here?" Ann-Sophie asked bewildered.

Slowly, Esther set eyes on her roommate and whispered:

"I think I had a nightmare."

* * *

(1) Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

(2) I know, I suck at describing the experience of unbearable pain.

**A/N: If you see any mistakes, you are welcomed to point them out. Sadly, I think there will be a longer delay for the story. Right now, I have some real-live issues to take care of, and I don't want to forget about my second Winx fic. Until now it has only one chapter and yet to earn its M rating. We'll see….**


	8. Life sucks

Sorry for the delay, first I had a writers block, then caught a cold, and now university is kicking my ass. Hope you enjoy anyway.

_Everything in life is fate, and we are the ones playing the cards._

* * *

"As if." Lea thought frustrated. According to that saying, she was quite a lousy gambler.

It's been a month now that she had entered Cloud Tower, and her life was still being dictated. Okay, actually life wasn't all bad. By now she had learned to control her cat-side pretty much and no more unwanted takeovers happened. Maybe it had been close a few times, but nothing more than close. And to be honest, she quite enjoyed developing her powers. The tower was still a bit creepy, especially it being dark all day, but that for you could always visit Magix in your free time. And the best thing was that she got along with her classmates rather well, maybe no one of them, aside of Anastasia, had become a really close friend, but they were cool and you could always hang around with them or chat about everything and nothing. And almost everybody had accepted that she didn't wanted to be a part of all the intrigues and power-plays that the student body played against itself.

Actually it was quite fascinating. Every competitor in this _play _tried to gain as much _power_ as possible, in all kinds of form. Power could mean to know something about others that they really didn't want others to know, it could mean to be such a charming personality that others actually liked helping you, it could mean to do others a favor and them owing you in return, or it could simply mean that you were the strongest one and could kick the others butt if they didn't do as you say. People had different ways to deal with this. Some formed covens to channel all their knowledge and talents to common goals, others used their deceptive talents to force others to work for them, and some acted in the shadows, manipulating stronger ones without them noticing. Now things never got completely serious, nobody got murdered, but rivalry and nepotism were all over the place. Student's competed in who would be the best in certain forms of magic, in who had the most powerful artifacts, sometimes who could even steal stuff that belonged to the school. And of course there was the competition in who was the best in manipulating/fighting the members of the other schools. Witches just loved messing with the other schools, although they were on friendly terms with some specialists from time to time.

Anastasia was in this endless competition too. Most would not believe it, given her closed up behavior, but she was something like the gossip queen. She might not talk much, but she ALWAYS listened to everything that was said around her. And she remembered it all. This meant she was always informed about any rumor and information in the school. And what she had gotten from the ball at Alfea had given her a head start before others. As said, witches loved to know things they could use against fairies, messing with them was always entertaining. So far, Anastasia managed that allot of people owed her, although most of the people she gave information repaid her right aw. And she didn't owe anyone anything. She never took sides, she just gave information.

Lea, on the other side, just tried to stay out of al of it. And most witches accepted that, for the most of them it was no fun to play with someone who didn't wanted to play.

But unfortunately not everyone. There was one exception, Judith Calbourne. The silver-haired princess seemed to take a great deal of joy from playing with Lea, probably because it annoyed her so much. Leas problem was still that she didn't know very much about being a witch, thanks to her father having kept her away from magic before. Of course she was not the only one with that kind of problem, but Cloud tower didn't have programs for such students, aside from them having to find out themselves by asking others. In the most cases, Lea would ask Anastasia for help. Unfortunately, that help was limited. Anastasia might knew as good as anything about witches and magic that you could learn through reading the right books, but because of her comparably limited magic she could only help Lea with theoretical advises. And every time that was not enough, Judith came along and offered her help.

Unfortunately Judith was always the first one to offer help and she gave many hints that she would be VERY offended if her "selfless act of obliging service", as she liked to call it, was turned down. Lea would really like to tell Judith to put her help to a place where no sun is shining, but she had seen what the princess had done to a classmate who had insulted her, the poor girl was still flinching whenever Judith looked in her direction.

She couldn't ask Anastasia for help either, because her roommate had made clear that she would not go into any kind of fight with Judith, because the silver haired princess had already gathered a bunch of friends, fans and spongers around her. That for, Judith tactic was simple, but effective: Just use her impressive destructive skills to scare the shit out of people and like that taking them any intentions on challenging her, and this way unable to refuse her offers, no matter how one sided they were. It was not that Judith was the most powerful witch around, but the only one who possessed material arts abilities. And that made her able to knock every opponent of hers to the ground as soon as she came just a meter near to her before her victim could say "upper-cut". This way, she had already gained a lot of power in Cloud tower.

Which meant, standing against her would only make things worse.

Not that it could be much worse, Lea thought. Because every time Judith helped her with some issue, and to be honest, the help was very helpful, she expected repayment. In form of little favors like spying on someone, stealing something that actually belonged to a teacher, or playing ambassador.

And the last favor had just been too much! Being send running and sneaking, okay, at least that had a little thrill and was some kind of training, but now that blue-blooded brawler waned her to play matchmaker! After the last time Judith had "helped" her, she informed Lea that had some kind of family gathering next weekend and that she would like to have a male trophy accompanist with her, but no time to look for someone.

When Lea asked her why the heck she off all people should look for one, Judith had answered, smiling: "At home, we had a cat in the palace. It ignored me most of the time(wonder why, Lea thought sarcastically), but the little furry slut was always able to make the males give her some milk. So I think this task should be in your blood."

Somehow, Lea could understand why cats used to torture their prey before killing it.

* * *

Because of that, she was quite pissed at the moment. And right now was a bad moment to be pissed.

That was because right now she was in a training-room of cloud tower, together with Anastasia, Judith and one of Judith's friends. They were having a lesson in combat, and today was one of these days in that the students had to battle each other while the teacher observed everything.

Sometimes, like today, they fought in teams, sometimes everyone for herself. Sometimes, some of them were only allowed to use standard techniques (bolts, shields, and so on) and the others could only use their very own magic. In this lesson, Anastasia and Lea were a team, as were Judith and her friend. And both teams were allowed to use their full magic potential.

The room was round and empty, without doors, they would only reappear after the fight was over. During that time, the teacher would watch the battle through a magic glass-bullet.

Both teams stood at the opposite ends of the room (as far as a round room has ends), facing each other. Anastasia was calm as always, in contrast to a very angry Lea, who was bugged from Judith's self-confident, a little autocratic posture. Her black haired friend had her arms crossed and eyed her opponents like they would not be worth the time. That, and her situation with Judith, were driving Lea over the edge.

The teams waited for the others to make the first move, possible a mistake that could be used. And then Judith's team acted. Her friend yawned, underlining her (played) contempt for the others, and within seconds transformed into an outgrown, black furred wolf.

The wolf showed its teeth and snarled.

That did it for Lea. Sure, Anastasia had told her to stay calm, not fall for any tricks and not underestimate the others, but now her anger was mixed with the sight of a natural enemy of the cat inside of her. With a hiss, the blonde girl leapt forward, changing during the jump and landing on paws. Driven by ancient instincts and rage, she was sure of a fast victory. It might be a big wolf, but as a jaguar she was still bigger, stronger and faster.

Anastasia cursed and also charged forwards. Curse Leas hot head for falling for that bait. She had known that Judith's friend was a transformer, but she didn't know to what extend. But now she had to make the best out of it.

The point of her left pigtail raced towards Judith's head, and like expected, the silver haired witch blocked it, with a shield out of steel she had summoned out of nothing, being the witch of iron.

Meanwhile, Lea had to face the consequence of her actions, when the wolf, just a few feet away, suddenly transformed into a big, white dragon with black wings. Shocked, she came to a halt. And desperately jumped to the left to avoid being hit by the giant beak that tried to crush her, leaving huge breaks in the floor where Lea had been moments before.

Simultaneously, Judith had accomplished to stop Anastasias left pigtail, but while doing so her shield had blocked her sight of Anastasia, so she noticed her right pigtail wrapping around her ankle first after she was already hurled through the air. In return, she managed to throw her shield at Anastasia, hitting her in the stomach and sending her to the ground. Despite the pain, the red head was still holding her and slammed her in the wall. But because of the hit there was not as much force in the swing of her hair as before and Judith managed to slow it through flying.

In the meantime, Lea jumped forwards, trying to dig her claws into the long throat of the reptile, but the dragon smacked her out of the air with its claw like a human would do with a fly, and Lea hit the wall with much more force then Judith. Enough force to let her change back and knock her out for the moment.

Judith, who had managed to free her leg, now flew towards Anastasia and landed in front of the read-head who was on her feet again.

Judith threw two punches at her opponent. Unlike most of Judith's former victims, Anastasia had experience in avoiding fists, so much to her surprise, the silver haired witch only hit air. In a counterattack, Anastasia tried to hit Judith's torso with a swing of her pigtails, but her opponent ducked and in return kicked her in the side. Anastasia grunted, but managed to get a hold on Judith's leg with her hands. Hands filled with heated blood.

Judith hissed in pain and raised her arm, shooting a bolt out of her fist. The impact threw Anastasia backwards and the pain caused her to let go of the leg. A bit of the electric energy also passed over to Judith, but she could stand it.

Stumbling backwards, Anastasia saw that the dragon, with Lea out of the way, was approaching her. Reacting swiftly, she let her left pigtail wrap itself around the dragon's beak. As expected, the transformed witch was not as strong as a real dragon, and Anastasia could slowly push her away.

Not happy with that, Judith had let a (stump) spear appear and reached back her hand to throw it, but was unexpectedly hit in the side by a bolt and thrown to the floor. Turning her head, she saw Lea, having her arms raised and smiling groggily. She hadn't recovered enough to stand up again, but, hell, she was getting better and better with bolts.

Angrily, Judith now threw her spear at the unmoving Lea. It shifted during the flight, taking in the shape of a U and getting sharp points. Both points dug into the wall on each side of Lea and like that bonded the blond witch.

Anastasias opponent had by now realized that she could not break free from the grip of the crimson hair, so she changed tactics and transformed again, this time into a big black snake. While her body was changing, she easily slipped out of Anastasias hold.

The snake slithered towards the redhead, who raised her pigtails to strike, but before she brought her hair down, she caught a glimpse of Judith hurling two basketball-sized balls of steel at her. Her pigtails managed to strike one of them out of the air, but missed the second, which connected with her stomach, taking her breath and throwing her on the ground. Gasping for air, she could not stop the snake from wrapping her body around her, bounding her effectively. Judith swiftly shifted the balls into one big cube and slammed it down at Anastasias pigtails, holding them down.

With clenched teeth, Anastasia heated her blood to free herself, but thanks to her thick scales, the snake didn't mind.

With a satisfied grin, Judith stepped to the side of the wrapped up Anastasia and looked at her expectorating.

Anastasia sighed. "I admit defeat."

Immediately, the snake released her and changed back into a witch. She offered Anastasia a hand which was accepted. Judith nodded to her and thanked her for the good fight, then she and her friend left the room through the reappeared door to get their results from the teacher.

Anastasia walked over to a still trapped Lea. With a strong pull of her pigtails, she got the spear out of the wall. Lea took a deep breath, happy about being able to breath free again.

"Are you okay?" Anastasia asked concerned.

"Don't worry" Lea said "pain is just an illusion." She stood up and groaned in pain while doing so, rubbing her back. "Argh, an illusion that really, really hurts."

If Anastasia had got the joke, she didn't show it. Instead she asked:

"You know what your mistakes were?"

Lea sighed. "I let my emotions control me and underestimated my enemy. Sorry, won't happen again."

Anastasia nodded. No matter what the teacher might say, this had not been a complete failure. She had managed to make her stand against Judith, and that was more than most of her classmates could say about themselves. If it had not been for the other witch, who knows. Sure, in a real fight, she might have been dead already every time Judith hit her with something, because she always could just have created something more lethal. But on the other hands, she had had more then enough strength in her hair to have broken her ankle.

_

* * *

_

"Life's a bitch. But then again, so am I."

Which would be the motto after that Ann-Sophie had lived since the scene at the ball. After that, her reputation, if possible, had fallen even lower than before. While before she had been known by everyone who had to deal with her as a hothead, troublemaker and rebel, she was now the "witch-lover", "witch with wings", "traitor" and a lot of other things that were meant to be mean. Sure, there HAD been that announcement the day after the ball that she and Anastasia were in no way responsible for the prank, but a lot of people didn't really believe that. Then there were those who did believe it, but felt betrayed that another fairy had brought a "spy into their home". Last, but not least, there were a few fairies that didn't care about Ann-Sophie being friends with a witch, and just disliked her attitude.

All in all, for now the bald fairy was pretty much the scapegoat/enemy number one of the student body.

Not that Ann-Sophie tried to do anything about that. Well, she did something against people talking nasty things about her with her in the same room and ignoring the fact that she was there, like forcing them to acknowledge her presence through some punches, head or, if she was not in the mood, using her powers to wrap them in darkness, making them run in and trip over each other.

Although that helped to make her fell better, it got her hours of detention, half a dozen times in that Griselda actually carried out her threats of turning you in some kind of animal, and one time she even got her powers taken from her for a week, not that she cared that much, she was more than able to handle things without magic.

After almost three weeks Faragonda had called her into her office and had a long talk with her, telling her that, though she understood that it was mainly the other students to start things, then her taking things more violent then they were intended to be, and she would really like to try to have better relationships with Cloud tower, it was just impossible for her to tolerate Ann-Sophie's behavior much longer and that she would have to expel her if she kept her "answer a verbal insult with a physical insult" policy, like An-Sophie called it, up.

So Ann-Sophie had swallowed her pride and started to just ignore all the talking. Unfortunately, after word got out that she wasn't striking back anymore and was near to be expelled, the dragonflies saw there opportunity for some repayment and dared other students to tease Ann-Sophie. That became a mayor annoyance to her, but she managed to stay calm, mainly due to the fact that she kept imagining doing things that included a major amount of pain to those who insulted her. So far, these little fantasies kept her aggressions down.

Still, it wasn't easy to remain calm, especially because she was also worried about Esther. In the short time they two of them had known each other, she had grown quite protective of the shy fairy. Problem was, the Horr'ill attack in their room had left Esther shocked and frightened. Her believes that she would be save in Alfea had been crushed and she was more withdrawn than ever. She only spoke in class when spoken to, keeping her answers short. She avoided any contact with others, except An-Sophie. She spent most of her time in her room, sitting at the window and holding the flowerpot with her rose in her hands like a living pet.

Ann-Sophie had often tried to talk her into easing up, going outside once in a while and talking to others, and of course the teachers tried to help too, the green-haired girl now had therapy sessions with Avalon three times in the week. Still, her answer to all questions and propositions stayed the same: Thank you for the concern, I'll think about it.

To make matters worse, the other students at Alfea completely misunderstood the situation. Whenever they saw Ann-Sophie and Esther walking through the school, seeing how Esther never left the taller girls side and looking afraid, Ann-Sophie often laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder, they thought that the source of Esther's fear and discomfort was Ann-Sophie. Several rumors about all the horrible things the bald girl might be doing to terrorize Esther when they were alone in their room were circulating. And nobody realized that THEY were causing Ethers discomfort, through all the pitying looks and unwanted attention they gave her. The green-haired girl hated pity, and she hated attention even more.

Right now, though, Ann-Sophie didn't really had time to think about those things, because at the moment she had flying class, under professor Avalon, and it was her turn to go/fly through the obstacle course. The course included a bunch of big rings, balls, cubes and other obstacles, like rotating staffs, hanging in the air unmoving (except for the rotating staffs of course) and building a line full of curves over the campus. The goal was to simply fly through it, trying not to hit anything and still being fast.

Ann-Sophie just loved that course. Sure, the first time had been a bit embarrassing, for her trying to "remove" an obstacle through striking it to pieces with her fist, plus some spikes morphed to her magic gloves. Well, that had been the plan, unfortunately she underestimated the obstacle, so it ended up without a scratch and she with a hurting hand and a numb arm. BUT, to her great excitement, after two weeks the course had been enhanced, with a lot of targets appearing out of nowhere that you had to destroy while flying through the obstacles. In Ann-Sophie's case, smashing right through them. Almost as much fun as having magic-combat classes with Palladium, although she still disliked it that he beat her every damn time they trained hand-to-hand-combat.

In the middle of the course, she took a glance to the side, her eyes searching Esther. It appeared that her lack of wings had the effect that she could not fly at all. That's why Avalon had come up with the idea of teaching her to use her powers to stretch the tendrils on her body to incredible lengths as a way of moving, through using them like ropes, getting a hold with them on distant objects and climb on them. He even had her try to do the obstacle course, wanting her to do like Tarzan, but after she almost broke some bones after loosing her grip or missing an obstacle in her first tries, that idea was abandoned. So right now he only wanted her to climb some special modified walls that he spelled into the campus. Of course she disliked that, because the special treatment brought her even more unwanted attention.

Because of that, the green haired fairy clung to Ann-Sophie even closer during flight lessons, and when it was Ann-Sophie's turn, she always tried to stand as far away form the crowd of the other students as possible, to avoid any questions.

As the dark fairy caught sight of her roommate, the sigth she got made her blood boil.

* * *

A few minutes before:

Esther was standing offside of the group of students which were waiting for Ann-Sophie to finish her turn. All of them, she included, were in their transformation outfits. In times like that, she was glad for the fact that Alfea was an all girls school. Really, why had the majority of fairy outfits be so revealing? It just didn't make any sense to her, not in a emancipating and not in a logic way. Sure, it was nice that women in nowadays society could decide about how much to reveal of their bodies, but with these outfits, they didn't really get a chance to decide that. She surly would have liked her outfit to be more covering. Not to forget that, despite some people may finding it attractive, free skin was not really helpful on cold days or in the rain. Sure, that the outfit was magical kept her warm, but she got scratches in it so easily.

And then what they had to wear in the course in the black mud swamp. Palladium had said that the intention behind this ridiculous tiny swamp gear was to let the body have a better access to the nature, but she would gladly do without that.

Lost in her thoughts about uniform, the tap on her shoulder made her flinch. Whirling around, stumbling a step away from whoever wanted her attention, she saw two of her classmates who had also stepped away from the others. Both had usual concern and worry in their expressions, while studying her frightened reaction.

Esther sighed mentally. So these two wanted to check on her, too, she thought. She was just so tired of it. Tiered of always having to say: "No, thanks, I am fine. Really." "Thanks, but there is nothing you could do." "No, Ann-Sophie did not demand silence from me." "Please, what they heard was just her working on her punching back." "She does not terrorize me, she is my friend." And last, but not least "NO, she has never done THAT!"

Why couldn't they just understand that not Ann-Sophie was the problem? Why?

One of the two stepped forward. She had long platinum blond hair in pigtails, red eyes and very pale skin. She wore a black jumper with a red heart that seems to dissolve into dots all over her jumper, a pleated red skirt, stripped purple and red Thigh-Highs and black marble shoes. Her expression appeared to be somehow distant, like her thoughts were at another place right now. And she didn't looked to comfortable with what she was doing either. She asked: "Sorry, would you mind me asking something?"

Used to that prozedur, she told her to go on. And was completely taken by surprise from the question.

"What did actually happen to your wings?" the fairy asked gently.

Esther clenched her teeth and lowered her gaze to the ground. Until now, the other students had avoided that question, and she was grateful for that. She really, really didn't want to be reminded at her loss. Sometimes she even managed to forget about it, but if now others would start asking….

"I don't want to talk about it." Her tone was quiet and sorrowful, but firm.

"I understand that it must hurt, but don't you think it might be easier if you'd talk about it and, you know, just let it out?" the girl tried to convince her, sounding like she truly cared.

Esther continued studying the ground, now even more depressed than before. Like anyone who had not lived through what she had to sustain could ever understand how she felt. She would always be alone with her pain.

She considered just walking away, but then she would risk the others following her. Anyway, where could she go to during class? She raised her head to look the other student in the eyes, briefly wondering where to the other student had vanished, and prepared to attempt to send the girl and her uncomfortable questions away, but as she was about to start, a shocked gasp right behind her made her freeze.

The second student had used the distraction provided by her friend to sneak behind Esther, with the intention to inspect her backside. After she could not see any sign of wings, she decided to try to push some tendrils out of the place where usually the wigs were supposed to be.

Her action was a quick one, but as soon as she had grabbed a tendril with each hand and moved them away, she froze also.

There had been a lot of rumors about Esther's lack of wings. The most popular was that someone, most likely a witch, had once cursed her and made her wings invisible or just disappear. Others thought it might have been an accident. A few said it was an accident of birth. Or some sort of disease. But none of those rumors prepared the peeking fairy on the ugly, deep scars between the green-haired girl's shoulder blades.

They were as broad as they were deep, and in some parts you could even see the white of bones. Both scares reached in long lines from the beginning of the upper half of her back up to the throat, and in both lines the skin had an ugly, blue-purple coloring.

Being young, naïve and perhaps even innocent, the shocked girl could have never expected that a fairy could have her wings taken out by brutal force, and it actually looked like they had been ripped out. Frozen in shock about this realization, all she could say was:

"Holy, how could such a thing…." She was at a loss for words.

Esther's tension skyrocket. Someone had found out! Faragonda had promised her that no one would ever find out! Now the entire school would get to know, now all would demand an explanation, now everything would come back to her, now she would again loose everyone to her past….

Unable to stand it, she let out a painful howl. As a matter of reflexes, not free will, her body started to defend itself, as every thorn on the tendrils of her body grew several inches. Dozens of them broke right through the hands of the fairy behind her, who cried out in pain, but that cry good under in Esther's continuing howl, who could be heard all over campus.

Desperately, the girl tried to free herself, but couldn't. While her blood was running down Esthers back and dripping to the ground, she tried to kick Esther to get free, but only got her foot stuck in other thorns, which went right through her shoe.

Her friend overcame her shock and moved to pull the girl away from Esther, but was thrown to the ground hard as Ann-Sophie, who thought the two girls were attacking her roommate, rammed her head with a nosedive right into the fairies stomach, taking her the air.

After she landed, the enraged dark-skinned fairy immediately went to the two crying girls, as did everyone else on the school grounds, but she reached them first, to mad to notice the others. Still not noticing what exactly was happening, she roughly gripped the girl behind Esther by the collar, lifted her up easily and threw her a few meters away. During that, the girl finally came free, as the savage force of Ann-Sophie's action ripped her hands from the thorns, leaving some skin behind. She landed painfully on her back.

Far from done, the dark fairy walked towards her, snarling:

"What did you bitches do to her!? Answer, before I strike too many teeth out of your mouth for you to answer!"

She raised her fist against the crumbling, bleeding, crying girl. And was hit by a golden beam that trapped her in a sphere the next second.

Barley able to turn her head, she saw the rest of the class approaching them, Avalon at the top, his right hand raised. Controlled, he gave instructions:

"Heather, Alice, bring Miss Marin in the infirmity." He pointed to the girl on the ground.

"Elisa, please go and get Miss Faragonda."

Immediately, the addressed girls did as they were told. Avalon faced Ann-Sophie.

"Can I trust you not to attack anyone when I release you?"

The dark fairy rolled her eyes, that was the second time someone asked her that question. Quite pissed with how the day had developed, she said: "Yes."

On wave of Avalon's hand, and she was free again. And started to throw a tantrum: "Why the fuck did you trap ME?! Those two other harlots are the bad guys here! They attacked Esther, and I am so…"

"Avalon cut her off: "Right now it is not important who started whatever happened, right now we have to worry about Miss Kraft's surprising condition." He gestured towards the shy girl.

"What situation are you…." Ann-Sophie asked, but stopped as she caught sight of the place where Esther had last been. Where now, instead of Ester, stood the bloomy head of a rose. And it was taller than Avalon and almost as broad as tall. The leaves bright red and stood in full bloom.

"Oh." She said. "THAT condition."

* * *

To say that Ann-Sophie was pissed would be an underestimation. Being angry beyond believes would be more fitting. What was bugging her the most was that she could do nothing but stay there and brood.

Faragonda had arrived very quickly. While the girl she had knocked down with her head was constantly sobbing that they didn't wanted that, the headmistress and Avalon had inspected the giant flower. Apparently, as it seemed after Avalon had scanned the flower, it was some sort of cocoon in that Esther had retrieved. The leafs of the rose were solid like wood and damn thick. If Esther could hear them from inside, she didn't show it, in the last minutes nothing had happened. The teachers, after some time added with Griselda and Palladium were quite worried. On the one hand, they didn't know how long Esther intended to stay in that cocoon, or if she actually had a choice in that matter, on the other hand neither did they know what would happen if they'd tried to break the flower open. After all, they could harm her. An idea had been to teleport Esther out of it, but Avalon suspected that the cocoon was connected to Esther's body just as her tendrils were.

So right now, all Ann-Sophie could do was wait and hope for the teachers to find a solution, while her dear roommate was as lifeless as she was when she was sleeping.

Wait. Roses were plants, which were living beings, right, she asked herself. That meant that roses did sleep. At night, in the dark, just as Esther. In the last weeks, she had gotten to know a few things about roses, Esther always talked about this damn roses in the damn flowerpot she was always clinging to when she was depressed.

With an idea in her mind, she walked over to the discussing teachers, and said, without caring that she was interrupting:

"I have a plan to reach Esther, but I am the only one who can do that."

All conversations died down and everyone looked at her blankly, including the crowds of students who had come to watch.

Griselda was the first to recover from the surprise that Ann-Sophie of all people could have a solution.

"Then please share your knowledge with us, Lady Winter." She demanded.

That the dark fairy didn't scoff at the lady title showed how serious the situation was to her.

"Just a moment." She replied and quickly transformed. Then she explained:

"Roses close up when it is dark. It is likely that the same thing happens to that one, since Esther is very close to roses. I think if I turn the flower into darkness it will close, when I take the darkness away open up again. And while the leafs are moving, I will try to get inside and reach her" she held up her hands, her gloves morphing so that her fingers grow in size and adding something like the heads of little shovels on her fingertips "with this."

The teachers first looked at her, then at each other.

"That could work, as crazy as it might sound." Palladium said.

"It could, indeed" Avalon added "but there would still be the risk that Miss Winter will literally be squeezed to death between the leafs. And who knows if the rose has other sorts of defense mechanisms."

Griselda spoke up: "I agree with him completely, the risk is too high. We should search for another option first and only go back to that if there is absolutely no other option left."

"Well, thanks for the idea, we really appreciate your act of help, but…" Faragonda addressed Ann-Sophie but stopped when she noticed that the dark fairy was not where she had been when she presented the idea. With a bad feeling, everyone turned their heads over to the giant flower, to see a big black ball instead. Said ball was just disappearing, and revealed the rose, no only half as broad. And the right half of Ann-Sophie, the other half was already behind a red leaf which was, like all the other leaves, falling away from the center of the rose.

Before anyone could try to stop her, the fairy disappeared completely behind the leaf.

* * *

Urgh, this is the most stupid idea I ever had, Ann-Sophie thought. She was seeing red, literally. And damn, this place was tight! At least she could still breathe. Flexing her muscles she squeezed and pulled herself in a vertical position through the layers of giant leaves. Soon she felt the end of the leaf in front of her. After she passed that end, she tried to get her hands between that leaf and the one in front of that. But it didn't work, the leaf would not budge. Cursing, Ann-Sophie concentrated and filled the areas around her with darkness again. Immediately the rose closed again, squeezing her tightly together between its leafs and cutting of her air. And it hurt like hell. After she thought her ribs would crack any second, she took away the darkness as quick as possible. The Rose opened again.

Taking in a huge breath of air, not really fresh, given her position, she thrust her left hand and feet between the moving leafs. This time, its worked, and she could continue to press her body through the red layers.

Outside, the people could do nothing but watch the rose, a bal of darkness once and then securing that Ann-Sophie was still alive. So far, they could only hope.

* * *

Inside the rose, after she had pulled that trick four times, her body felt like one big pen wound. Then, finally her right arm touched nothing but air after it passed the end of the leaf in front of her. Groaning, she squeezed herself out of the wall of leafs, into the inner core of the rose. There she saw Esther in the centre of the flower, sitting upright curled in a fetal position, her eyes closed like asleep. The thorns on her tendrils had their ordinary seize again. Some of them were connected to the ground of the rose, like it would have actually grown first on her and then around her.

Ann-Sophie, who now stood inches away from Esther, since there was not much room, spoke up:

"Esther, are you there?"

Here roommate didn't open her eyes, did not move her head, gave no sign that she even acknowledged her presence, but still answered in a whisper:

"Yes?"

A bit freaked out by the entire situation, Ann-Sophie said:

"Eh, look, I, well, this is really a nice rose-thing you have made here, I mean, it's comfortable warm inside and you look relaxed, but don't you want to come out know?" She avoided speaking about what drove her inside the flower in the first place.

"Why should I do that? I like it here." Esther answered.

"Uhm, yes, I said that already, but everyone is worried about you, especially I."

Esther chuckled bitterly. "Of course they are. They are always worried. Worried what I might become after what they did to me, worried about me leaving, worried about others of them finding out. Now they have found out, and now they will tell the others about, and soon they will come to take me back, to that cold, dark place, and they will continue to take me away from me, and will watch with their worried eyes…."

OKAY, Ann-Sophie thought, like too much information. But I have to keep digging to talk her out of this.

"Who? Who will do that?"

In a blur Esther's head snapped around to face her, eyes wide open, and her face did not look like that of a of a 16 year old, but like that of a scared, lonely child. And with a matching voice she answered:

"The HUMANS!"

Her tone was practiacally begging for Ann-Sophie to understand.

The bald girl almost flinched at her roommates surprising reaction. More uncomfortable then before, she tried to be reasonable:

"Look, I am human…" Now she flinched as every thorn on Esther's leaves grew five times in size within a second, and some came uncomfortable close to her body. Esther didn't seem to notice. "….a-and so are you."

Slowly the thorns retreaded and Esther turned her head away from Ann-Sophie.

"Am I?" she asked. "I am not so sure about that. And even if I am, I don't really want to be one. It's easier the other way, you now. It is so much easier to be a rose. Roses don't hurt each others. They don't hurt strangers, unless they mean them harm. They don't do all the things humans do. I think it would be so much better to just stay like this, just be a rose and forget about it all. Finally find peace."

Ann-Sophie was growing frustrated. She wanted to argue about that, but unfortunately she couldn't really find any arguments against that. And if she couldn't talk Esther out of this, she'd be stuck here.

Wait. Perhaps that would work.

"Okay, I can't argue with that. Maybe it _could_ be easier to be a rose. But know what, screw easy! Easy is boring. The good thing on being human is that things never get boring. Well, of course that's not always a good thing. But, what I really want to say is, if you stay a rose, I'd be trapped inside here with you. Not that I would not enjoy the company, but I do have to eat from time to time. So could you please postpone your decision about your way of life for a few day, stay a human and safe me?"

First that was greeted with silence. Then Esther, still not facing her, said, a bit pleading:

"That's not fair. I like you, you know. You make me feel safe. You don't ask questions. But you are the only person I like. The mass of people I don't like is just outweighing you. That's why I want to stay here. Where I can make myself feeling safe. And now I have to go back to all the people I don't like because of the only person I do like, because otherwise I will lose her. That's just not fair."

Ann-Sophies voice softened. "Life is never fair. But you can fight it. WE can fight it. We will, I promise."

Silence. Then:

"I will return. For you. But please… Could you hold me when we get back to _them_?"

"Sure." The answer came without hesitation. The hesitation came when she tried to actually hold her, given the fetal position and all the thorns that was not really easy, but she thought, to hell, pain goes away. Carefully, she wrapped her arms around the green haired girl and held her, ignoring the little thorns piercing her flesh.

* * *

Outside, almost the entire school had gathered around the flower by now. Everyone, well, at least the teachers, were getting more and more worried about Ann-Sophie. Avalon was near to propose trying to open the rose with force, when said thing started to move. Slowly, the leaves fell away from the centre of the flower, one after another falling to the ground. After the last ones laid down on the grass, both girls were revealed in the middle of them. Ann-Sophie was holding Esther, now in casual clothes, in her arms, while she clung to her with her arms around the bald girl's throat. Her eyes were closed, not because she was asleep, but because she did not want to face the world she had returned to. Not that anyone could know that. What was the most astonishing thing for most of the spectators was the gentle, caring and a little guilty look Ann-Sophie gave Esther.

That look was replaced by a grim one when she turned to face the crowd.

"I'll bring her to bed. She needs rest."

With that declaration, she walked away, the crowd opening for her. No one thought about stopping her.

* * *

Next time. It'll be revealed what happened to Esther and all four of the girls meet up.


End file.
